Re: Open Office file formats (Oasis-open) and gnumeric

[Russell McOrmond <russell flora ca>]

On Sun, 9 Mar 2003, Jody Goldberg wrote:

> All of the plugins included in the primary source tree are GPLed.

  Is there any possibility of getting the authors to re-license under
LGPL?  Otherwise this code cannot be re-used, just used as an example for
duplicate code.

> >   I am also interested to hear more of GNUmeric and GNOME Office 
> > interaction with the Oasis-open TC, and whether this XML-based standard 
> > will be supportd by GNOME Office.
> At this point we have no plans to adopt the OO proposal as our
> primary format, and I have not started on an OO exporter.  After
> evaluating the format I was not thrilled with portions of it, and
> have decided to continue looking at other options.

  While the OASIS group is starting with the OOo format, I believe it is
better to think of it as the OASIS format and not the OpenOffice.org
format.

  Your note is unfortunate to hear.  My interest is not so much to promote
any specific format, but to promote file format standardization. I am
actively involved in promoting FLOSS <http://www.flora.ca/floss.shtml>
within governments (especially the Canadian federal government).  Office
productivity file/communications format standardization has become a big
part of this promotion, and the OASIS group appears to be the most
promising effort toward this goal.

  I don't know the GNOME team well enough to know if any of this group is 
already a member of this effort:
  http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/#members



  Do consider having a feature where one can choose on installation the 
'default' file format to be used.   I can see government departments 
standardizing on the OASIS format and wanting tools that will use that as 
the default, even if the tool has other formats it considers to be 
'native'.  I will want to ensure that Gnumeric has no reasons not to be on 
the approved list.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses, 
 VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen 
 and not a third party.   -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/