Re: DocView now supports OpenDocument & MS Office formats

[Richard Stallman]

    Oracle's stated intent is to supply the Oracle OpenOffice deliverables
    with SaaS capabilities. This is not a theoretical matter, its
    happening.

"SaaS capabilities" is rather vague -- could you tell me what this
refers to?

The issue is important because OpenOffice is important.  I am not yet
sure it related to Emacs, but I should learn about it anyway.

    In order for an Emacs to gain ODF support via the proposed docview.el
    interface one must leverage python/pyuno/UNO/OpenOffice/Java

    The point is:

     - interaction with the UNO bridge is not (necessarily) simple RPC;

That is too vague to draw conclusions from.

     - the UNO SDK is a poorly specified;

That would be a problem if we cannot make it work.

     - Its protocol is compromised in lieu of the Sun/Oracle merger;

"Compromised" is rather vague, so I am not sure this is an issue.

     - asking Emacs users to embrace these dependencies just to gain ODF
       support is tantamount to a tacit endorsement of Oracle's reframing
       of software as service in a distributed manner;

I am not sure "Software as a Service in a distributed manner" is
coherent.  Often the alternative to a centralized network service is a
distributed system in which users' machines cooperate.

Thus, I have doubts about this conclusion.

     - asking Emacs users to install the python/pyuno/UNO/OpenOffice/Java
       dependencies just to gain ODF support is ironic given the extent to
       which the Emacs-Devels have endeavored to keep the Emacs footprint
       small;

People who want to use ODF need to install OpenOffice anyway,
so I am not sure this is a terrible problem.

If there's another way to do the job, it might be better.

-- 
Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org, www.gnu.org