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Our Blogs Open Sauce - A GNU perspective GNOME: the cowboy project | GNOME: the cowboy project |
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| by Sam Varghese | |
| Thursday, 20 December 2007 | |
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GNU Project and Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman says, though GNOME is part of the GNU Project, it does not "follow GNU policies the way a normal GNU package does. That's Miguel's doing." The reference is to Miguel de Icaza, one of the co-founders of GNOME who now works for Novell as its open source chief. Stallman says the FSF is not connected with GNOME. "The GNOME developers only listen to me a little. (That is the result of Miguel de Icaza's actions)," he said. Regarding GNOME's involvement in the OOXML standardisation process, he said: "The official announcement a couple of weeks ago said that GNOME is intentionally not doing anything during this phase of the process, precisely to avoid helping Microsoft win ISO acceptance." He denied that GNOME had now become the champion of the OOXML document format, which Microsoft is trying to push as an international standard. "That (GNOME becoming the champion for OOXML) is not true. However, OOXML support is being implemented in some GNOME packages," Stallman said. The OOXML format is not even output by Microsoft's own Office 2007 which adheres to a spec differing from that submitted to the industry standards body ECMA. Stallman said he was unaware of this. "That's more detail than I know about. Maybe they will try to support both," he said. Asked whether, in view of the principled stand taken by the K Desktop Environment on the OOXML issue, the GNU Project would officially acknowledge this (Stallman has acknowledged it in a posting to a GNOME mailing list) and consider nominating the K Desktop Environment as one that now met all the requirements for a free software project, Stallman replied: "That would be a very drastic thing to do." Asked why GNOME had not included support for the Open Document Format, which was accepted by the ISO as a standard in 2006, in either the word processor Abiword or the spreadsheet Gnumeric, which are part of GNOME, he said: "I wish it were. I don't know how to contact the developers of Abiword or Gnumeric. If you tell me how to contact them, I will urge them to do this. I don't promise they will pay attention." Stallman was cautious about the Mono and Moonlight projects. Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET development environment while Moonlight is attempting to clone Silverlight, Microsoft's bid to compete with Flash. "I think it is ok to develop and use Mono and Moonlight, but we should be wary of depending on them for anything important because of the known possibility of Microsoft patent threats," he said. While the GNOME Foundation media spokesman Jeff Waugh claimed recently that Miguel de Icaza has no official role in the GNOME project anymore, it is common to see long posts from De Icaza on the Planet GNOME website. This site is meant for GNOME developers. Asked about this, Stallman said he had seen messages saying that people with accounts on Planet GNOME can post anything they wish -- "there is no editorial control over what is said there." He added: "I do not like what Miguel says, or what he does."
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  written by Jeff Waugh, December 20, 2007
To correct some misinformation in this article:
While Gnumeric has only the beginnings of OOXML / Office 2007 support, it also includes partial support for ODF (which is improving, but needs help). Abiword includes support for ODF and uses it by default on, for instance, the version of Abiword (called 'Write') on the OLPC. It is extremely disingenuous to suggest that GNOME is a "champion of OOXML" just because we're starting to implement it so our users can choose Free Software instead of proprietary Microsoft products. written by Jeff Waugh, December 20, 2007
Miguel is still a GNOME Foundation member and included on Planet GNOME because we actually show respect for our past contributors, even if they are not *directly* active in the GNOME project itself anymore. These facts do not demonstrate any influence over the GNOME Foundation or GNOME development whatsoever.
Miguel founded the project -- of course we're not going to "kick him out" of our community. We are not nasty and irrational. written by Jeff Waugh, December 20, 2007
Additionally, Planet GNOME (as anyone paying attention to blogging in the FLOSS community should know) is a blog aggregator. There are no "accounts on Planet GNOME", just aggregated personal blog entries.
written by Sum Yung Gai, December 21, 2007
Jeff,
Thank you for your comments and clarifications regarding OOXML and Miguel's involvement. I used to praise his name to high Heaven during the legal problems with Qt. I used GNOME both on principle and because it was good. However, in light of his apparent love-affair these days with Microsoft patented technologies (e. g. .NET, Silverlight, and OOXML), and his deep involvement with GNOME (the founder, as you point out), I am concerned. I'm not a developer. I'm one of the many evangelists out here trying to get people to actually convert to Free Software, and I'm having some modest success. However, I don't see how putting them on technologies that we know that Microsoft claims patents on is helpful, unless you're actively trying to get yourself sued by Microsoft. It seems to me like GNOME is sliding that way. In light of Miguel's prominence (and he *is* prominent, no question), should not the GNOME Project take an equally principled stance against including known MS-patented technology as the KDE Project has done? --SYG written by Mark, December 21, 2007
Lost most of the FLOSS communities respect some time ago in case you are not aware Jeff. He's at best misguided or just plain delusional, I for one wish he would just go away and take his horrible tainted code with him.
written by Jeff Waugh, December 21, 2007
Well, if you're talking about Mono, it's not like the GNOME community has been particularly warm to it.
If you're talking about OOXML, then you need to look at the OSP, remember that we're doing the ECMA stuff to get as much documentation as possible, and consider what would happen if no one in the FLOSS community implemented it, giving Microsoft an advantage in an already monopolised market. Of course, everyone who cares about getting users to migrate to FLOSS is working on it, because it's the right thing to do. :-) written by Mark, December 21, 2007
Lets just all hope it gets voted down next year and be grateful for small mercies, it won't stop it spreading but might help slow it down where it matter's.
As to the whole Gnome/KDE debate, I'm long over that one and use both on a daily basis, i've never understood why people feel a need to take sides, use whatever you like, thats what it's all about. I read most of Sam's article's, he always jumps at any chance to attack Gnome, why I don't know, if he chooses to waste his time on such nonsense that's fine but i have better things to do. written by J. Dave, December 21, 2007
Not researching ODF support in Abiword and Gnumeric isn't really misinformation. It's more like poor or slanted journalism, but it isn't central to the article.
Sam did the classic move when writing about Free Software: Talk to Richard. He always answers simply and directly, and only accounts for what he knows. Sure, you can find the email addresses for every Gnumeric contributor in the "About" dialog, but Richard has probably never used Gnumeric so he genuinely doesn't know how to contact them! Whenever a journalist goes to Richard (and that includes Dan Lyons) they get to play the lawyer who always knows the answers a witness will give to his questions. And in this case, Richard's observations are fair: GNOME isn't particularly attached to GNU or the FSF, and Miguel is still influential and involved. And Miguel is not inclined to the values of Free Software these days, so make of it what you will! written by samv, December 22, 2007
I am using version 2.4.6 of Abiword and I cannot see any way to create a document in .odt format.
I am using version 1.6.3 of Gnumeric and when I save a document all I can see with regard to .odt is Open Office OASIS_UNFINISHED_ You can't be half-pregnant - you either have support for .odt or not. Please stop spinning and speak the truth for once. written by Joe Black, December 22, 2007
By that argument, Sam, you have to say that KOffice doesn't support ODF either. Maybe you should eat your own advice and stop your own spinning, you've obviously gotten dizzy already.
written by Sridhar Dhanapalan, December 22, 2007
Sam,
Please investigate things properly before you accuse. I've got Abiword installed here on Ubuntu 7.10, and I have the choice to open and save ODT files. A lot of Abiword's functionality are via extensions (much like Firefox). If you're using Ubuntu, install the abiword-plugins package and enable the plug-in via the Tools -> Plug-ins menu. Hopefully they'll couple the ODT functionality more closely when they are more confident in its capabilities. ODF isn't a easy standard to implement, and in fact when you include all the other standards it relies upon, its length rivals that of OOXML. written by don_crissti, December 22, 2007
Sridhar is right Sam. Install the abiword-plugins-impexp (or whatever it is called in your specific distro) and it will handle any .odt file. I use it on a daily basis and it works fine. It's not Abiword's devs fault that certain distros forget to integrate plenty of usefull plugins.
written by samv, December 23, 2007
With Koffice my default choice to save is .odt. I use a distribution called Debian GNU/Linux - I presume you have heard of it. Possibly, it may not be as well known or popular as this buntu thing to which one of you gentlemen refer.
We are talking about defaults here - not functionality provided by this or that plugin. And we seem to have conveniently forgotten about Gnumeric. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Murray Cumming is onto something. written by Sum Yung Gai, December 23, 2007
...and apparently himself as well. You cannot properly (read: able to open any other OOXML document) implement Microsoft's OOXML without violating some Microsoft patents. On the other hand, you *can* do so between ODF implementations without patent concerns. Not saying it's been done perfectly yet with all ODF-speaking apps; rather, I'm saying that you *can* do it. Not so with OOXML.
If you really do care about migrating people over to FLOSS, then please stop putting them at this legal risk. Stick with truly unencumbered ODF. written by mb, December 26, 2007
Looks like those wearing BIASED glasses needs to either:
1. Update their version of both Apps to something recent. 2. Actually try using the applications in question. Both _do_ support ODF. Whilst not every feature of the ODF sepcs are in place, the 'core' is there. Arguments about Gnome Vs KDE is like trying to argue which colour is better.. Blue or Red. Use what you feel most comfortable with. Myself... I use both.. and have both libraries installed.. and use apps from both. It's the best of both worlds. :) Tell us what you think! better to paste your comment - this page will refresh every 15 minutes
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Expect a zillion "I *heart* KDE" articles from Sam as KDE4 approaches.
Open critique is great - in fact it's the essence of free and open source software. But critique != hatred.
It's a real shame, because Sam can write really good articles when he's on his medication. Something about GNOME makes him stop taking the pills.