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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: Microsoft proprietary formats must be supported
From:       "Jacques Chester" <jacques.chester () student ! usyd ! edu ! au>
Date:       2000-04-24 0:07:22
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[..]
> into the necessary office in Redmond and steal the formats, or
organize
> a march onto the floor of the US Senate and demand the required
orders
> to Microsoft to open the formats, or someone needs to take up a
> collection of $20 billion annual license fees to feed Microsoft for
the
> license, but somehow, one way or another, you need to find a way to
> support Microsoft proprietary formats, so that they can be
commoditized.

Perhaps we could contact the SAMBA team, and
ask them how they accomplished these things.

Point one:

Opensource isn't about "MUST". Nobody compels
you to do something, you chose to do it. That's
one of the reasons it also goes by the name of
"Free Software".

Point two:

The formats are documented (for what little it's
worth) on the MSDN website.

Point three:

Going on the SAMBA experience, the format documents
are worth "not much". As it is, MS tends to alter
its specs when SAMBA's hackers point out inconsistencies.


It won't happen through some ra-ra action. It'll
happen through some very smart hackers reverse
engineering the format.

>  That's reality.

be well;

JC.

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