Re: GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation
On Sat, 2007-11-24 at 23:53 -0500, Jody Goldberg wrote: > On Sun, Nov 25, 2007 at 04:11:11AM +0100, BJörn Lindqvist wrote: > > On Nov 24, 2007 8:27 PM, Jeff Waugh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > There is no "neutral game" being played here. Concerns were raised that > > > the > > > GNOME Foundation's participation in EMCA TC45-M suggested that we > > > supported > > > OOXML becoming an ISO standard. Thus, the answer was simple: We do not. > > > > Well except that our representative on that committee supports OOXML > > becoming an ISO standard... Please stop the charade, getting involved > > in the process was a stupid mistake to begin with and continuing to do > > it while the hypocrisy shines through is just boneheaded. > > I'll ignore the troll-ish words like 'stupid', and 'boneheaded'. > Be civil, or debate in an echo chamber. yeah it would be nice to keep it civil > > The status of MOOX's ISOness has no bearing at all on my actions. > There are a limited set of possibilities > > 1) MS and it's shills drive it through soon. > 2) MS and more shills drive it through later. > 3) MS invents a non-ISO way to declare it a standard (ala Mass). > > There is no > 4) MOOX vanishes in a puff of smoke. MOOX is most likely to become irrelevant IMO Firstly the de facto standard is doc, xls ... And that will not change for a long time Office 2007 has less than 10% of all office versions (50m out of 500m) and even though the company I work for has given us office 2007 we still transfer everything as doc and xls. So backwards compatibility hampers adoption of MOOX more than anything else People that go on about MS monopoly power forcing standards on people seem to forget that MS biggest competitor is itself and consequently Im very sceptical MOOX will become widespread If companies will continue to use doc and xls formats for compatibilities sake then why is it so essential for us to implement support for it? > > I do not follow the politics of the national bodies, and make no > predictions on the relative probabilities beyond the simple fact > that they total to 100%. What seems much more interesting is that > from a technical perspective none of them have more than a marginal > impact on number of people using Office 2007. It is already > shipping, and MS has made a commitment to it's software ecology to > conform to the published spec. > > Any user that wants to use a new feature (eg sheet > 64k rows) must > move to the new format. Whether it is an ISO standard, or not, we > will need to interact with the format, and it significantly easier > to do that if I can ask MS questions and get answers. The ancillary > benefit of having some overlap between the logical content in MOOX > and the old binary formats is gravy. > > > How on earth can offering constructive criticism, feedback and > > helping develop a specification NOT be supporting it?? > > By that logic all of the national bodies, and IBM are 'supporting' > the process. They've all offered criticism (some more constructive > than others) and feedback. The only difference is that we've had > some of our questions answered already, rather than buried in the > pile of 3000 or so the TC is digging through now. > > Our developers (GNOME and OO.o), and our users are better off with a > clearer spec. Would it hurt so much to have a moratorium on MOOX dealings til after February next year when ISO standard is determined? Personally I would not want Gnome to touch it with a bargepole but I dont have a problem with spec improvement *after* February next year. I can see MS spinning this to their advantage and I believe playing safe here would be better for us in the short term jamie ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation
On Sun, 2007-11-25 at 12:18 -0500, Jody Goldberg wrote: > On Sun, Nov 25, 2007 at 12:56:09PM +0000, jamie wrote: > > > > MOOX is most likely to become irrelevant IMO > Not agreed. its debatable and subjective - yes. I reject the notion its a foregone conclusion that MS gets its way however > > > Firstly the de facto standard is doc, xls ... And that will not change > > for a long time > somewhat agreed. MS is not stupid. They learned the leason of > Office97 and will not be repeating it. This is why they released > MOOX support for older versions of office before 2007 came out. > The shiny new features in 2007 (more cols/rows, conditional regions) > are a means to draw people forward, but the old versions are not > locked out of the new files. well my office 2003 cannot read them > > > Office 2007 has less than 10% of all office versions (50m out of 500m) > Which is already comperable to the OO.o installbase. They are > playing with a much larger population. yes and that larger population is using older office versions so MS still has a lot of work to do to sell to them an expensive upgrade which mostly only contains a prettier interface I dont think anyone can say which way it will go > > > If companies will continue to use doc and xls formats for > > compatibilities sake then why is it so essential for us to implement > > support for it? > For the same reason that we release win32 builds. The > windows/office population is large enough that even a small > percentage represents alot of bodies. > > > Would it hurt so much to have a moratorium on MOOX dealings til after > > February next year when ISO standard is determined? > > > > Personally I would not want Gnome to touch it with a bargepole but I > > dont have a problem with spec improvement *after* February next year. > > That is precisely the situation we are in. There is no opportunity > to raise new issues after the BRM in Feb. Hence, there is no > involvement. but feb 2008 is for ISO standardisation - I thought you were working with ECMA on their spec? In any event I dont understand why the gnome foundation was pulled into this - cant you do your work with ECMA without foundation backing? jamie ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation
On Mon, 2007-11-26 at 04:45 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote: > > > > In any event I dont understand why the gnome foundation was pulled into > > this - cant you do your work with ECMA without foundation backing? > > As explained in the statement, the GNOME Foundation joined ECMA as a > non-profit to allow Jody to continue his work sucking the documentation > blood from Microsoft's stone. > I know but that does not answer my question - could jody do this without foundation backing? if not then fair enough jamie ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME Foundation Statement on ECMA TC45-M Participation
On Mon, 2007-11-26 at 09:49 -0500, Gregory Leblanc wrote: > On Nov 25, 2007 12:39 PM, jamie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Sun, 2007-11-25 at 12:18 -0500, Jody Goldberg wrote: > > > On Sun, Nov 25, 2007 at 12:56:09PM +, jamie wrote: > > > > > Office 2007 has less than 10% of all office versions (50m out of 500m) > > > Which is already comperable to the OO.o installbase. They are > > > playing with a much larger population. > > > > yes and that larger population is using older office versions so MS > > still has a lot of work to do to sell to them an expensive upgrade which > > mostly only contains a prettier interface > > The sell here for Microsoft is very very easy. The small businesses > that I do consulting for here in the US all use Microsoft operating > systems and office products. At this point, when they order a new PC > as either a replacement or an upgrade, they are unable to order > Microsoft Office 2003. Microsoft has enough monopoly control to force > users to change to the new version, simply by making the old one > unavailable. > > The change to Microsoft Office 2007 will happen, and the change to > MOOX will inevitably follow. Its not that simple. From what I see in the company I work for, we tend to still use doc and xls even though we have office 2007 so that others outside our business can still open the docs Lack of backwards compatibility could severely limit use of MOOX where businesses cannot be sure others can utilise it. Doc and xls are simply the lowest common denominator and hence will continue to be used whether you have 2007 or not and MOOX cannot change that for the foreseeable future In your example - this is even more the case! If half your computers have 2007 and the others 2003 you will not be using MOOX surely? jamie ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Thu, 2007-11-29 at 18:44 +0100, BJörn Lindqvist wrote: > On Nov 29, 2007 3:13 PM, Luis Villa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On Nov 29, 2007 8:31 AM, BJörn Lindqvist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > On Nov 29, 2007 1:33 PM, Luis Villa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > I'll second this. The fact:fiction ratio of boycottnovell is just > > > > incredibly, incredibly bad. > > > > > > RMS message read "If part of it is not accurate, I hope someone will > > > explain." Do you care to sort out what is fact and what is fiction? > > > > Jeff has ably debunked this particular fiction already in the thread, > > and more generally ably debunked the FUD that Novell somehow controls > > the Foundation. As to the rest, I have better things to do with my > > life than to debunk the rest of boycottnovell post-by-post. > > No. The boycottnovell site and the OP alluded to that there would be > moral, philosophical and or legal problems with GNOME depending on > Mono and or C#. Is that fact or is it fiction? > Its hypothetical The fact that its optional means its also irrelevant in any case IMO microsoft technology (outside the realms of genuine interoperability like wine or samba) is pretty much irrelevant to the wider GNOME community too. Any attempt to add MS stuff in the future is likely to be optional. If it ever becomes mandatory, Gnome would probably fork and its as simple as that. The official GNOME approved desktop and platform is really the lowest common denominator for all its members - at least that is how I understand how they approve stuff for it. BoycottNovell are really "trolls r us" and are anti-gnome as much as they are anti-novell jamie ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 10:17 +1100, Jeff Waugh wrote: > > > I suspect there hasn't been anything firm because (a) there is quite a bit > > of division within the community on the issue and (b) there is some > > element of "walking on eggshells" around Novell and its endorsement of the > > environment. > > Agree. > > Also, I think much of the issue has moved on from legal paranoia to concerns > about adopting a strategy perceived as Microsoft-friendly (at least among > those who don't adopt a knee-jerk, black-and-white approach to such issues). there are other fair play issues too With Novell's customers getting exclusive patent protection for mono, it seems unfair for everyone else who have a heightened risk. Increasing mono adoption combined with MS FUD tactics would give Novell an unfair advantage over its competitors (as Ms tech is more likely to be tainted with patents obviously) If novell want mono to be on the agenda then they really have to can their patent deal - I personally would object to any new mono apps proposed for Gnome because of it on the grounds I stated above jamie ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: GNOME dependent on Mono
On Fri, 2007-11-30 at 15:44 -0600, Shaun McCance wrote: > > We want to add support for Tracker as a search backend. Tracker > is implemented in good old C, and it finally seems to be getting > some uptake. It just takes some manpower. > With XESAM coming along, you wont need to have libtracker or libBeagle as a dependency (really these two should be deprecated as nautilus, yelp and Gtk file chooser can all use libxesam instead) Nor will beagle and tracker (and other indexers) have to write their own indexers for yelp as we will move towards having index-independent third party indexers for both individual entities as well as crawlers for container objects that contain lots of sub-entities (lime mbox, rss feed etc) Ideally the authors of yelp will be able to write their own indexer plugin that all indexers can use As soon as Xesam 1.0 is out (hopefully before xmas) the next thing will be 1.1 which will have the above plug-in functionality defined As always, lack of time is making progress on Xesam slow atm but its getting there jamie ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: Proposal: Desktop Search hackfest
On Mon, 2008-07-21 at 18:07 +0300, Quim Gil wrote: > Proposal: Desktop Search Hackfest. > Calling to: Xesam, Beagle, Tracker projects and whoever else is involved. > When: September 19 + the days the developers decide before & after. > Where: Berlin. > Why: The Board made a call to organize hackfest around events and the > Maemo Summit has answered. > Budget: Funded by Nokia within reasonable terms. > > But why? > > Ok, let me explain. We have some budget to sponsor participants to > https://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Summit_2008 . We want to find a balance > between Maemo community contributors, related upstream developers and > core developers of the Maemo SW team at Nokia. We think organizing a > GNOME hackfest is a win-win. > > Desktop search is an interesting area. Federico explained in GUADEC > the problems of Oralia finding her stuff and there are many more > things unsolved. It is becoming a critical area, considering that > users are getting more volumes of data, more types of files and they > have them spread through several devices and the Internet. Its a good idea and I know the tracker devs including myself will want to attend I would prefer it if it was Desktop search and *Metadata* as the search aspect is already well covered in Xesam but the use of a centralised metadata is critical to having a well integrated desktop. jamie ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
Re: What do you think of the foundation?
I dont think there is a problem in the community to be honest whilst some people do have strong opinions and there are indeed factions within gnome which can be very vocal, I dont think anyone can say gnome has truly poisonous and destructive people. Sure some poeple can come across as arrogant or aloof at times and they may also appear hostile to others but it rarely is a problem really - its part and parcel of any community Gnome is generally a happy place IMO and I dont think the board needs to act in this area yet jamie On Fri, 2009-05-29 at 10:45 -0600, Stormy Peters wrote: > So I'm hearing Dave say we need more policing and Philip saying > everything is ok. What do others think? > > Does the community think everything is ok? Or if not, do they want to > self police or delegate taking action to the board? (Or both.) > > Philip, I agree that your blog is yours, but supposedly you write blog > posts, emails, IRC chats to tell people something. So if you are > offending them and responding angrily, are you communicating what you > want to be saying to them? For example, if you think people are too > politically correct, the way to persuade them of that is probably not > to swear at them. > > I think you have the right to freedom of speech. I even think you have > the right to say it any tone and with any words you want to. But if > you want people to listen, you need to speak to them in a way *they* > don't find offensive. > > And this is often really hard to do. I dread some conversation topics, > like politics, because people are so emotionally involved they end up > "yelling" at each other and neither side convinces the other of > anything. > > Hopefully in the GNOME community we can stick to the topic and keep > out offensive language or behaviors so that we can have productive > conversations. Often that means making your behavior match a social > norm, even if it's more "politically correct" than you'd normally be. > > For example, some of my SO's friends tend to swear a lot more than I'm > used to. It doesn't offend me, but I don't do it. I've noticed that > they don't swear when they talk directly to me. They're socially aware > and they've adapted to my social norm. > > I suppose the question is what is our social norm? That's what Dave > and Philip seem to be debating. > > Stormy > > > On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:34 AM, Philip Van Hoof > wrote: > On Fri, 2009-05-29 at 16:46 +0200, Dave Neary wrote: > > > Philip Van Hoof wrote: > > > > > > As every opinion of me is looked as being aggressive, it's no > longer > possible for me to have this discussion in a constructive kind > of way. > > > -- > Philip Van Hoof, freelance software developer > home: me at pvanhoof dot be > gnome: pvanhoof at gnome dot org > http://pvanhoof.be/blog > http://codeminded.be > > ___ > > > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list > > > ___ > foundation-list mailing list > foundation-list@gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list ___ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list