[odf-discuss] GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation

[Jonathon Coombes]

On 26/11/2007, at 7:01 AM, Daniel wrote:

> To all:
>
> If I had been in Jeff's place, I would have given up on talking to  
> this list long ago. I'm sorry, but people in this list, in  
> particular PJ, have been quite vicious in their attacks and have  
> taken the slightest nuance of everything Jeff says as proof that  
> Gnome is the spawn of the devil. What has occurred in this list is  
> not civil discourse, and it should not have been allowed.
>
> I intend this to be my only email to this thread, because honestly  
> I have no energy for the kind of discussion that is going on in  
> this thread. I am embarrassed to think that this is the kind of  
> group I helped form. This is not at all the community I envisioned  
> when the Fellowship was first created. I dreamed that it would be a  
> place where people would work constructively to make real progress  
> for ODF. I did not expect that today it would one day resort to  
> witch hunts and "you are either for us or against us" kind of  
> positions and in-fighting with other FOSS projects.
>
> I don't expect that this email will alter the views of those who  
> have participated in this thread. I expect that nothing will. But  
> maybe others readers will get something from my post.

Hi,

I am with Daniel on this and could not have said it any better. As a  
person who knows and often works/participates with Jeff in various  
organisations and groups to do with FOSS and open standards, I held  
off any input thinking that these arguments would dwindle quite  
quickly, but unfortunately it still continues. I have every faith in  
Jeff's intentions both as an individual and as part of the GNOME  
organisation. Sometimes approaches differ, but our goals should all  
be the same - to promote FOSS and open standards and see them  
implemented in many new and interesting ways. If people keep on  
arguing over insignificant issues, then this simply detracts from the  
main goal. I would just like to ask that people stop getting into  
such narrow focus of where things are going and get back to the big  
picture of getting FOSS and open standards promoted and of interest  
to government and business.

Regards
Jonathon

>
> Jeff Waugh wrote:
>> <quote who="Jeff Waugh">
>>> Jody Goldberg is the lead maintainer of Gnumeric, a GNOME-based
>>> spreadsheet application, a position he has held for seven years.
>> Again, I'm not sure the intent of participants in this discussion  
>> is very
>> positive, so I don't know how long I'm going to offer my input on the
>> issues. It just doesn't seem particularly helpful to waste my time  
>> defending
>> the integrity of my peers and project in the face of such vehement  
>> attacks.
>> I'd like to offer one thought, however: Every time we use the  
>> argument that
>> OOXML is an enormous specification (over 6000 pages) and extremely  
>> difficult
>> to implement (an issue that is particularly relevant for my work  
>> against ISO
>> standardisation of OOXML in Australia), we benefit from Jody's  
>> work on ECMA.
>> Just think about the number of times this issue comes up, and  
>> whether or not
>> challenging Microsoft on their home turf is a good idea. I'm not  
>> going to
>> change a lot of minds here, but perhaps some will see that it is  
>> ridiculous
>> and laughable to cast GNOME as "evil" in this issue.
>> It still frustrates me that the knives and vitriol has come out  
>> when we
>> clearly share 99.9% of our values and vision, very little time has  
>> been
>> spent listening to the logic and reason behind our participation,  
>> and that
>> this overwhemling anger has split our community to Microsoft's  
>> advantage. I
>> think that's a very sad thing for both ODF and FLOSS.
>> Thanks,
>> - Jeff
>
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Jonathon Coombes - Cybersite Consulting
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