Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?

[Jody Goldberg <jody gnome org>]

On Wed, Nov 28, 2007 at 09:34:54PM +0000, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> One question to candidates: 
> 
> 	Wil you promote the Foundation's participation on the reviewing
> 	of ODF?
> 
> I'm sure it won't be for lack of a sponsor, but I think it is much more 
> important to the Free Software world to have a true Open Standard for
> office documents, regardless of MS OOXML's outcome, and I hope the
> Foundation will help make sure the users of GNOME can use the next
> version of ODF with GNOME based Free Software.

I don't see how the foundation can 'make sure' of anything in this
instance.  It can not force developers towards or away from either
spec.  That is simply not in it's mandate.  We all appear to agree
that implementing ODF is good for FLOSS.  However, beyond that
there's no stick, and a carrot (eg funding) seems inappropriate (why
this project vs the dozens of others).  Possibly as a Google summer
of code entry, but that would require that Gnumeric get accepted.

The board has offered to try and facilitate a membership in OASIS
for an interested candidate.  The will is there, but like so much
else we're short on man power.  We'd welcome patches to improve the
ODF exporter in Gnumeric or abiword.  I'd prefer to be spending my
time coding to these endless discussions of ISO-tactics.