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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 0:48:03
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> Hi All,

Hello :)

A quick note: perhaps my previous post was bordering
on flammage. So apologies for an absence of smileys.
I'd only just woken up :)

[..]
> > Perhaps we could contact the SAMBA team, and
> > ask them how they accomplished these things.
> Plenty of packet sniffing, hex dumps and late nights from what I've
> heard/read ;)

I was joking about storming the US Senate.

"Senator Smith, you may speak."
"2A 1B C1 42 ..."

> > 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".
> We don't have to comply but it would be very nice if we can port our
> existing documents to KWord, etc. I don't see M$ making the effort
to
> import/export KWord docs ;-P

I can't seem them doing it either. Not yet, anyway :)

I myself am somewhat groping towards setting up a
company around KOffice (can't really discuss much
yet, but if you go over posts here I guess it's
obvious :). One of the priorities is obviously
to allow people to migrate from MS Office to
KOffice.

This goes beyond just translating files: there's
also issues of translating macros, importing settings,
copying and translating fonts and clipart to a
more useful format, and so forth. Not as
immediately obvious as it may seem. A set of
scriptable filters goes a *long* way, however,
towards a more wholesale migration system.

> > 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.
> But the docs that are available are a good starting point. I think
there
> will be plenty of hex dumps involved and a lot of hard work. I think
the
> wv library has done a lot of the reverse engineering already...

They seem to have done so, yes. And my hat
goes off to them for all their hard work.

> Cheers,
>
> Joel Sing

be well;

JC.

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