11.28.07
Quick Mention: Novell’s Latest GNU/Linux Discrimination
Microsoft permits things on Windows, but not Linux
No OOXML seems to have just absorbed a development that we wrote about many months ago.
Without the press taking notice, Novell is actually putting OpenOffice.org for Windows at a position of advantage, which leads to fragmentation, incompatibilities and leaves Linux users behind, even as far as OpenOffice.org itself is concerned.
It’s good to see this acknowledged and noted by a separate and independent source.
It is the “OpenOffice.org Novell Edition”, that is a kind of half fork of the official OpenOffice.org. Novell is pulling the strings to get the Gnome project to adopt its version as the official Gnome OpenOffice. This fork is using the last version of the OOo and adding/changing features to
it to create a different product: the “Novell Edition”.The main difference between the OpenOffice.org Novell Edition and the official version of the project is that the Novell Edition is encouraged to provide import and export to OOXML. Additionally it includes some add-ons that they didn’t want to integrate in the official version of OpenOffice.org (indeed they chosed an incompatible license to prevent any kind of integration of their code in the official project). These add-ons can be seen here: http://www.go-oo.org
All this strategy of to divide the “instrumental” OOo project probably is under the umbrella of the Microsoft-Novell agreement.
This is very alarming. Read the whole item. Novell is still screwing the FLOSS community for all it seems. Novell serves Novell, but nobody else in this one particular area. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Jim Powers said,
November 28, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Perhaps Jeff Waugh would like to comment on this?
I have been following the unfolding GNOME/OOXML/Jeff Waugh saga and I’m playing catchup on my reading trying to formulate an educated opinion about what is going on.
Comments Jeff?
Irrelevant said,
November 29, 2007 at 5:05 am
You’ll actually find that this has more to do with Sun’s intransigence at taking patches upstream. Michael Meeks’ commentaries in this regard are a public source of record.
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 29, 2007 at 5:39 am
‘Irrelevant’,
We’ve looked at this earlier (many posts about the ‘fork’ question). I remain unconvinced and I trust Mr. Phipps (still) more than I can trust a team so heavily influenced by Mr. de Icaza.
Ian said,
November 29, 2007 at 8:35 am
What does Meeks have to do with Icaza directly?
Jim Powers said,
November 29, 2007 at 8:37 am
‘Irrelevant’,
If the issue was simply the recent blow-up over of the OO development process then why all the license encumbrances now introduced by Novell?
Seems pretty apparent to me: it’s another shaft up the rectum of FLOSS carried out by Novell controlled by the puppeteer that is Microsoft.
As I am making my way through the backlog of reading associated with the whole Jeff Waugh/Gnome/Novell “Thing”, I’m getting more and more distressed.
Now, it may be simply that Novell alone is poisoning Gnome, and the “independent” portions of Gnome are, in fact, on the up-and-up as Jeff claims. Perhaps checkins to Gnome should be stopped for Novell employees.
On the whole the Gnome participation in the OOXML thing is becoming more and more baffling. The writeup on the Gnome site provides some history, but there are simply too many question lingering, the most important is:
Why, what’s the point?
This question is asked the context of the fact that OOXML is a sham. It is a token standard to MS to be able to say that they have a standard, but they will not adhere to it. When they start to diverge from OOXML we’ll be right back in the camp of reverse-engineering their document formats again, just like what was done for .doc and .xls formats. It really, really, really, seems like a waste if time for talented individuals to be engaged in.
How’s about this: keep up the pressure for MS to put and ODF reader/writer in office? Seems a lot more interesting.
Really, look at the track record: CSS support in IE7 (which only came about due to FF!) - incomplete, they’ve publicly stated that it will never be complete. Hell, their support of HTML in general is temporary and transient, they are trying very hard to co-opt the “Web” parts of the internet as well (re: BBC iPlayer, NetFlix on demand player, Silverlight, etc., and all that Wonderful Mono ticking-time-bomb stuff that will come out of this. When will de Icaza learn that is was Google and Gmail+Google maps [as well as many others] that showed that we can can have a rich internet WITHOUT the Armageddon that WAS XAML)
There is already NOW a document format approved by the OSI, it’s called ODF, want to show that you play well with standards? Support it.
Victor Soliz said,
November 29, 2007 at 8:37 am
I’d like you to be serious or at least try so.
Novell is the one pushing OOXML into OpenOffice, and the one trying to make a windows only OpenOffice and for no reason giving it advantages over the Linux one (I actually thought Novell dudes were Linux vendors…)
If Sun was at fault and Novell didn’t want to fork openoffice, then… Novell wouldn’t have forked it…
Roy Schestowitz said,
November 29, 2007 at 11:03 am
As I remember it, the limitation was imposed by Microsoft. Ron Hovsepian spoke about it roughly 7 months ago. The issue is:
Regarding point (2) and to answer Ian’s question, as I remember it, when Ted Haeger introduced that ‘OOo on Steroids’ (for Windows only), this seems to have had something to do with Miguel de Icaza. I remember that quite clearly. He was also the one defending the move. I can go back to refresh y memory of this.