12.22.07
Novell/Microsoft Contract for OOXML Support May Still Have Influence in the GNOME Foundation
It’s a tough reality, but someone needs to grok it
Miguel de Icaza may no longer be the President of the GNOME Foundation, but Jeff Waugh has just admitted that Miguel is still a member of the Foundation. He recently admitted that Miguel also had little influence in GNOME and, as we already know, Novell supports OOXML. Miguel loves it. Here it an interesting bit of information:
Planet GNOME
written by Jeff Waugh, December 20, 2007
Miguel is still a GNOME Foundation member and included on Planet GNOME because we actually show respect for our past contributors, even if they are not *directly* active in the GNOME project itself anymore. These facts do not demonstrate any influence over the GNOME Foundation or GNOME development whatsoever.
There was an attempt to retract the “little impact” [of Miguel] remark. The above can be interpreted as “a membership does not demonstrate influence”. Nevertheless, it neither falsifies or annuls the possibility that there remains influence. It’s a question of cause.
Why would there not be influence (even if it’s small in terms of impact)? As we stated yesterday, Novell will always have some influence in GNOME because there’s an intersection that is unavoidable. It’s like Java and JavaScript, not Car and Carpet. There’s resemblance and practical commonality. Any attempt to deny this will be weak. By association — thinking transitively — Microsoft gets its bit of impact in GNOME, via Novell.
There’s a good rebuttal at the end:
Spin must stop, Waugh
written by samv, December 22, 2007
I am using version 2.4.6 of Abiword and I cannot see any way to create a document in .odt format.I am using version 1.6.3 of Gnumeric and when I save a document all I can see with regard to .odt is Open Office OASIS_UNFINISHED_
You can’t be half-pregnant - you either have support for .odt or not.
Please stop spinning and speak the truth for once.
There’s a good (and very long) conversation right there in the comments, so it’s worth a quick glance.
KDE has recently response to this issue as well. One noteworthy post explains that “Nobody support Ecma OOXML, not even Microsoft”.
You are spot on when it comes to supporting the old MS Office 1997 format. But as mention above, Microsoft them self don’t support Ecma OOXML. And Microsoft prohibits individual developers to use Ecma OOXML. ISO comities around the world voted against standardization of OOXML in its current form. Thousands of issues has to be addressed if OOXML gonna represent a transition format from old MS Office documents to a “modern” one. This is the main goal for Microsoft, but they have not delivered on promised, as the ISO standardization process shows.
It is very important that the GNOME Foundation stands up and supports standards while shunning proprietary formats that are neither out there in the wild nor seen as capable of being implemented. █
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.