There has been some debate today over whether OpenOffice.org should put out an official press release about the Novell / Microsoft pact. I’m not convinced that there is enough of an OpenOffice.org ‘angle’ to justify a full PR. However, for the record, I did suggest the following text:

• OpenOffice.org acknowledges the support it has received from Novell. This has included sponsorship for our annual Conference and employing OpenOffice.org developers. We are pleased that the enhancements made by Novell developers have been made freely available to the community. In this spirit we wish Novell continuing commercial success, and hope that another tranche of Microsoft funding will enable them to devote more resources to OpenOffice.org.
• OpenOffice.org believes the statement that Microsoft and Novell will be working jointly on Microsoft’s OpenXML format is an unwelcome diversion. OpenOffice.org calls on Microsoft to respond to the wishes of governments and others world wide to fully adopt the OpenDocument Format. Unlike Microsoft’s private OpenXML format, OpenDocument Format has achieved the highest level of international standards approval. The format is already in use by software including OpenOffice.org 2.
• OpenOffice.org shares the concern among the open-source community about some of the possible legal implications of the deal, and whether this pact may turn out to be part of another Microsoft attempt to turn back the tide of open-source. If this should be the case, we have confidence that the Novell developers will put the good of open-source first and will not be deflected from their excellent work on OpenOffice.org and other open-source projects.

Time will tell.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 6th, 2006 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Open-source. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.