Re: [Sheflug] OpenOffice.org becomes PatentOffice.org

[Alex Hudson <home@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2006-12-05 at 11:48 +0000, simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> > In my eyes, Novell is forking itself out of the FOSS community. Here's 
> > the press release, to memorialise this day in FOSS history, and so 
> > you can reach your own conclusions. "
> > 
> > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061204130954610
> 
> I think people are going over board here. The announcement is no
> surprise and all they're doing is adding a translator for another MS
> format. I understand all of the code will be fed back to OO.o 

I think groklaw is worse than slashdot at the moment :(

Novell are actually participating in the (sourceforge-hosted) ODF<->OXML
converter project, like they said they would be weeks and weeks ago.

Saying that patents are the issue here is dubious in the extreme;
Microsoft have promised not to enforce patents on OXML against *anyone*,
and the patent agreement with Novell covers Novell's customers, not
Novell - Novell aren't allowed to implement MS' patented stuff.

Cheers,

Alex.


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