KOffice Developers Reply to Yates 368
danimo writes "In response to his letter to the Massachusetts administration, the KOffice team has written an open letter to Microsoft manager Alan Yates. It clarifies some false claims that Yates made, such as KOffice, StarOffice and OpenOffice.org being one codebase and that OpenDocument was thus never a real standard. Massachusetts has meanwhile adopted OpenDocument."
Yay! (Score:5, Interesting)
Am I the only one who noticed... (Score:1, Interesting)
Is legal action possible? (Score:5, Interesting)
THIS is why I can't stand MS sometimes... (Score:5, Interesting)
All so they can convince the Mass. gov't to use their own single codebase "standard."
Are Wallin's comments much more accurate? (Score:3, Interesting)
"KOffice is the most comprehensive of all office suites in existence, comprising no less than 11 different components in one well-integrated package."
Is it really, though? I mean, it's one thing to have 11 different components. But it's another to have all those components working well. While the very core KOffice applications like KWord are acceptable, some of the other components aren't exactly the most usable. To declare KOffice as being "the most comprehensive" office suite might be somewhat incorrect.
"Last, but not least: Within a year, KOffice will likely run on Windows as well."
This could be a very dangerous thing to claim. Let us say that in a year, KOffice is not running on Windows. This claim has now left the KOffice team in a very difficult position. They have no choice now but to include support for Windows within a year. Otherwise Microsoft and others could point to this letter as being a work of deception.
I commend Wallin for attempting to set the record straight regarding the claim that KOffice was derived from StarOffice, but perhaps some of the claims are going a bit too far.
Re:He mentioned Abiword and Gnumeric as well (Score:3, Interesting)
How does MS's own format compare? (Score:4, Interesting)
How many different applications from different vendors already support the MS XML format? How does this number compare to the OpenDocument number?
OpenDocument will be usable on a number of CPU and OS platforms. How many CPU and OS platforms will be supported by MS's own XML format? (I use a Solaris workstation at work and do not myself have access to a Windows PC until I get home, at which point I'm not "working" anymore)
How long ago was MS's own XML standard finalized? And how widely is it in current use today? (I honestly don't know either since MS tools don't run onmy workstation at work, and I don't do this sort of thing at home to be worth buying their stuff myself) Has this been long and wide enough to "prove itself" in comparison to how long and wide OpenDocument's use has been to date?
If MS is losing business due to the choice of standard, why does MS not implement this open standard in their own product?
What are the costs involved with implementing MS's own XML format for 3rd party vendors in their tools such as OpenOffice, KOffice, etc?
MS seems to dictate what capabilities are required for "modern documents". Surely the committee that decided on OpenDocument knew what their own needs are and will be, and could determine if OpenDocument's capabilities were suitable?
Re:Like a stuck pig (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not saying this is true. I doubt even Microsoft thinks it's true. However, as long as the masses are convinced of it, Microsoft will use/abuse this for marketing and PR. Every time someone uses Linux or OOo, Microsoft will paint them as fanatics and crazy people, out to get Microsoft.
Re:Why even bother with word processors? (Score:5, Interesting)
You might want to try the 1.3.6 version (latest stable), or, if you're adventuresome, the 1.4.0 in CVS. LyX is NOT designed for short documents, such as very quick notes or things of that nature. But it's phenomenal for long documents (several page letters, technical notes, books, theses, and, with the beamer class, even presentations which knock the crap -- admittedly not a difficult task -- out of PowerPoint).
I suppose you meant you could never share *editable* documents with others at work. Well, LyX exports to just about every "nice" standard, including
Re:Word processing != Typesetting (Score:3, Interesting)
Neither is Word. The appropriate program for such things is WordPad (in Windows world) or gedit (in Gnome world). Word is too complex, and its many features get in the way and become distractions - the constant automatic spell checking underlining every mistake you make being a good example.
Re:He mentioned Abiword and Gnumeric as well (Score:3, Interesting)
Can't you run KDE applications on Gnome too, using the KDE-libs, and doesn't the letter announce a port for Windows?
What about OSX and Win32 ? (Score:1, Interesting)
That might have been Alan's point.
Re:Word processing != Typesetting (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people use Word to gratuitously format specious documents that they capriciously attach to emails, when a simple bit of text would do. And by most, I mean like 90%. The other 9% are printing clipart flyers on poster paper to advertise their pet avocation on a light pole. 1% of folks are creating paper forms and such which will continue to be required until such time as 100% of our population is connected and computer literate. Which unfortunately probably means forever. LaTeX would serve them fine.
But back to your point, I'm curious - what particular feature of Word helps you organize your text-based data over and beyond what plain text and a good text editor? Let me guess: the colorful sparkles.
Re:Are Wallin's comments much more accurate? (Score:1, Interesting)
I thought it was written in Java.
It's an open standard (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hi. Here. Us, too... :-) (Score:3, Interesting)
Simply put, blame the EU. We have to pay Value Added Tax (VAT) for sales to European customers and we don't have to do this for non-European customers.
Our US$ prices and our Euro prices are identical in numbers. This currently means a value difference of about 20%. This is close to the amount that we have to pay in VAT -- 16% now, going to 18% shortly.
If you can present a European VAT number, we can ship without VAT to you, but you have to pay your government's import VAT instead.
The European VAT tax system is convoluted, but the intent is not much different from the U.S. where you have to pay either sales tax or use tax.
Martin Kotulla SoftMaker Software GmbH
Re:Hi. Here. Us, too... :-) (Score:1, Interesting)
Lay out a time table or suggest a work-around for the missing feature if you want to make US customers confident about your product, and save your sleepy excuses for the Italians.
Comparing MS Office and kOffice. (Score:2, Interesting)
I've found just a few bugs, for example German documents often spill into neighboring French documents, and the Italian and Spanish support needs a lot of cleaning up (especially the Spanish support: it really stinks). But I'm a believer. French software runs much faster!
Re:Why even bother with word processors? (Score:1, Interesting)
I know that a lot of people find them 'fast and efficient' for many uses, but only because they don't have the basis for comparison. Yes, compared with a typewriter and white-out, they're fast and efficient. However, compared to real text editting and typesetting tools (like vim or emacs on the one hand, or TeX/Adobe/Ventura on the other) they are horribly inefficient kludges.
Re:Like a stuck pig (Score:3, Interesting)
In the business universe, Word/Excel/Powerpoint is the de facto standard. If you don't have access to these formats, you're going to have trouble working with others.
This is why Firefox is a true success. It has changed the market so that Microsoft's best cost/benefit option is to actually make IE better, which makes life better for everyone.
What's more, by doing so, Firefox either drives up Microsoft's operating costs, prevents those resources dedicated to fixing IE from doing other things, or both. And by doing that, Firefox creates opportunities for Microsoft's competition.
It gets worse for Microsoft: As investors see that Microsoft is having to spend more to make the same amount of money, real questions about the value of the company's stock happen. That sounds ridiculous, right? Oh ye of little faith:
Stock chart for MSFT [yahoo.com]
Re:Why even bother with word processors? (Score:1, Interesting)
And, naturally, they don't provide a LaTeX class for their supposed IEEE format, so most other changes (e.g., box around figures and tables) had to be hacked in manually.
NOTHING beats LyX for short letters (Score:1, Interesting)
Try the koma-letter2 style in LyX (at least under LyX/Aqua, for the Mac). I defy you to find an simpler letter-writing utility. You'd actually have to make an effort to get it wrong.