1. ODF … will never be ‘the one true office format’ for all office applications without destroying it’s [sic] utility by diluting it with so much random cruft that no implementation would be complete…

An open format is for reliable exchange of document information and does not have to support all features of the apps that use them. There is no justification to demanding 100% fidelity with cosmetic appearance or application-specific extensions.

2. OOX is a file format that is in use, and we will have to interact with it. The opportunity to improve the spec and have MS answer questions and clarify necessary details should not be wasted.

Interacting does not require supporting a ridiculously complex format totally within the control of a single company. Translate all archival docs to the open format (ODF). If there are problems with the translation which lead to loss of real information, fix the translator and/or the open format. OOX will never truly be open. You are only helping to extend a dominance by one company in office applications. What a shame.

Its chilling to realize how gullible some people are.

You have the ’say’ they want you to have. When they use you and hollow you out, they will spit you out.

The power of ego is thinking that you are somehow not going to suffer the fate of others before you.

When you do things that affect only you, I could care less if you jump off a cliff.
When you do things that affect a whole community, then we have a right to call you out for the sheer arrogance.

Call me names all you want but the whole Novell/Miguel/Gnome storylines are pretty revolting.

And I hope you Gnome people are going to be happy going from the Nix plaltforms to the Windows one. I mean, it is the dominant one after all, so I dont see you wasting your time with things like Linux.
Good.

Also the only way to break the current practice when one company possesses the market and pays no attention to the standards it does not like is to make this company to play by the rules. Not to ask it – time showed it had no sense, but to make it by adopting the standard which gives all others the same rights and abilities from scratch. ODF is such a format, not the OOXML.

If governments and public organizations adopt ODF, everybody will be sure 1. They can open their documents in the program they like, not the only one program, and any time in the future. 2. They can open the document they obtained from others without need to buy Microsoft Office.

I also think you overestemate importance of OOX. I think OOX will be dead in water in some years (ironically, not because of Linux, but of Mac). Office Vista will never reach same percentage which Office 2000/XP/2003 enjoys/enjoyed, for sure.

However, I trust that your motivations are pure, not Novell influenced (and don’t get me wrong, I can understand Novell guys reasoning too). I hope it’s not because just Gnumeric is built upon supporting Excel format and it is hard to support ODF because of that.

p.s. Gnumeric guys have always somehow been very against ODF, so this situation worries because of believe that it is some kind of personal manifest going on here.

But you guys are free to do what you like. If you think you’re doing a good thing by doing this, you should really do so.

“OOX is a file format that is in use, and we will have to interact with it. The opportunity to improve the spec and have MS answer questions and clarify necessary details should not be wasted.”

(As if we’re still interested in their stupid opinions about Miguel, or interested in their religious anti Microsoft crusading).

Bad enough already that Slashdot is giving these people a forum.