Re: Question to candidates: what about next ODF?

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    What funding? No one is paying Jody to do what he does on OOXML;
    again, he is a volunteer, doing things voluntarily. If someone were to
    volunteer for ODF, the board would facilitate it. But the board isn't
    going to pay anyone to work on either standard.

We have analogous situations in Emacs development.  It is done by
volunteers, so we can't direct anyone to implement a new feature for
use on GNU/Linux, and we can't direct anyone to implement a new
feature for use on Windows.  Both are done if and when someone
volunteers.

But if someone offers to contribute code that implements a feature on
Windows which we don't have on GNU/Linux, I tell him that we can't
install it until the feature also works on GNU/Linux.  That's because
our goal is to replace proprietary systems, not enhance them.

Occasionally this means Emacs works less well on Windows than it might
have, but that's no real loss.  More often it convinces someone to
implement the new feature on GNU/Linux, and we install it for both
platforms.  Either way, it is better than installing a Windows-only
feature.

In pursuit of the broader goal of software freedom, it would make
sense for GNOME to adopt an analogous policy not to give support to
OOMXL any sort of support that it doesn't also give to ODF.