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List: kde-devel
Subject: Re: KDE, Gnome, Koffice, Goffice and more
From: dep <dep () snet ! net>
Date: 2000-02-28 12:53:56
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On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, Dirk A. Mueller wrote:
| We've agreed on using .desktop files already, we're trying to get a
| common window manager standard done and a common (or at least
| exchangable) file format for office apps would be the next step.
bingo!
prepare for dep philosophical rant number one, which follows
immediately:
a year ago i did a survey of word processors for X, concentrating on
the open-source stuff, and what i found was about a dozen of them,
usually half-finished and each with some proprietary file format that,
while often allowing export through rtf or somesuch, was incapable of
even dreaming of handing off a complex document to someone else. this
included, too, the word processors that were part of some real or
imagined suite.
the reason winword has swept the dosrivative world is that nobody else
bothered to establish a standard. now, word processors on that side of
the planet either read/write winword files -- something microsoft goes
to pains to make difficult -- or they fail.
in linux, we have, still, the group of half-finished standalone word
processors, some but not all unchanged in the year since i did my
survey. some of them show great promise, but they will go nowhere
because of the goofy proprietary file format.
kde is at a point where it will soon have not just the most often
installed desktop in the linux world but also the most often installed
office suite. kde2 will be the standard because when people install
linux, kde2 will be what the boot to linux brings them. additionally,
there has been an enormous amount of thought put into koffice's
iteration of xml. it's a good format (albeit a little code-heavy). and
it will become something of a defacto standard through sheer number of
installed units.
there is much to be said for pointing this out outside of the kde
community and offering whatever aid can be offered to developers of
other applications such that they can be made compliant. this
specification can do much to extend the influence not just of kde but
of linux in general. kde has tremendous power to do this, which if
applied, not in a bullying, microsoftish fashion but instead
judiciously, can do tremendous good.
here endeth the tirade.<g>
--
dep
--
take back america and throw a wobble into the spin:
if you're interviewed by an election exit pollster, lie!
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