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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: Fwd: OpenXML support in KOffice
From:       Thomas Zander <zander () kde ! org>
Date:       2006-07-17 19:57:58
Message-ID: 200607172157.59403.zander () kde ! org
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On Monday 17 July 2006 17:54, sven@slueppken.de wrote:
> > - actually using the converter requires koffice to interpret
> > Microsoft's Open Packaging Conventions - another proprietary standard
> > you must understand (and licence).
>
> You know that Microsoft has submitted their specs to the ECMA so that
> everybody who wants to can participate in the development of OpenXML?

MS has submitted their spec, true. The rest of your statement is false.
Just because its a standard does not mean its an _open_ standard. That 
takes a lot more. [1]

> >- there are still patents on the fileformat itself and helping out the
> >  project can leave you open to litigation from microsoft.
>
> Well, patents are on the OpenDocument format too, it was implemented in
> KOffice anyway.

Various independent lawyers found ODF to be safe. [2]
On the other hand there are various independent lawyers that said exactly 
the opposite of the MS format. [3].

> I'm not a laywer and those licensing issues are always quite delicate,
> but why not give Microsoft a chance? 

I'm not a lawyer either, but I surely am keeping up to date and I first of 
all listen to a lot of different sources when getting my news. Over the 
last couple of years I found that its very seldom that MS propaganda 
(including msn blogs) will tell you the full story or even the plain 
truth.
I have repeatedly given MS 'a chance', and limiting my observations to 
this case, there is just too much that needs to be fixed on the MS side 
for me to honestly state that contributing to this project will not have 
long lasting negative effects on your ability to work on free software or 
even KOffice. And I really don't want people to start working in kde svn 
on this for that reason as well.

I hope this clears things up a little.


1) Its off topic to go into the difference of open standards and 
rubber-stamped standards; I suggest you start here:
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20051216153153504

2) 
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-12-2006/0004395762&EDATE=

3) http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051129101457378
There can be found more behind [1]. And Martin pointed to a thread as 
well.
-- 
Thomas Zander

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