Michael Meeks On ODF and OOXML

biscuitfever11 writes "ZDNet has up a great interview with Michael Meeks, the distinguished Novell engineer, who's currently deeply involved in open document format and OpenOffice.org. In the interview, Meeks takes Microsoft to task on its alternative format OOXML and argues that Microsoft should adopt ODF — but says that realistically they never will. He also mentions his favorite example to explain the benefits of open source software to a nontechnical person: the flexibility of open source would have allowed us to free ourselves from Clippy, the world's most despised paperclip, by changing a single line of code."

No way, given half a chance

[LiquidCoooled]

Given half a chance the OSS world would probably have neded up patching Office with:

' remove MS cruft:
' AssistantLoad "clippy.acs"
AssistantLoad "Tux.acs"

Clippy!

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like you're writing code to remove me!

Re:No way, given half a chance

[MightyMartian]

So how much does Microsoft pay you for these semi-coherent rants? Or are you a true mental retard, and doing it for free?

Re:Clippy

[Antiocheian]

At last, a correct statement about Clippy! Yes, he was added in Office 97 and yes, it was very easy to disable or not include it at installation (options were provided for both). Microsoft had removed Clippy in Office 2003 but if you slipstream SP2 (or the new SP3), the option to install Clippy is back on.

I am sure this is due to popular demand.

Here is a 100% true story about Clippy: I was installing Windows for my girlfriend and I came to the point of installing Office. She saw me marking Office assistant off at installation and asked with dread: "Are you.. removing CLIPPY???" And she started crying and demanding that I get Clippy back on the installation. Of course I don't take shit from women in these matters so Clippy was left out, but we had a real fight on that day.

It was always easy to disable and it was always an option. Therefore Michael Meeks, by saying "You couldn't turn [Clippy] off and it came on and you had to talk to it before you came on.", loses some credibility.

Re:Clippy

[SamP2]

Yep, a paper clip is more important than a personal relationship. True sign of a CS guy: smart, experienced, and lonely.

Re:Okay...

[killjoe]

Can you tell me what company you work for? I just want to make sure I never invest in a company run by a guy who thinks like you.

If your boss will fire you because a network card failed the business is doomed.

Re:Clippy is not a very compelling argument

[marsu_k]

I'll put on my Executive Hat

Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.

Re:It doesn't matter ... we are screwed either way

[Chemicalscum]

The Novell OOo group have already produced a plugin in for docx. The reports on it are that it doesn't work very well yet. Currently it is supposed to only work with the Novell hacked version of OOo, but the Novell people as part of OOo are working on a filter as part of the next official release of OOo.

There is a port of the Novell plugin for Ubuntu Feisty at Getdeb:

http://www.getdeb.net/app.php?name=OpenOffice.org+OpenXML+Translator [getdeb.net]

I have installed it and tried it out on various random .docx files I have been able to find on the web. The results have varied from total failure (nothing is imported) through poor (formatting is obviously screwed up) to excellent (results look perfect even if I haven't got the Office2007 available to compare the result).