From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: DocView now supports OpenDocument & MS Office formats Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2011 13:14:13 +0900 Message-ID: <871v4uk4iy.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <87hbduhno4.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1294028355 16226 80.91.229.12 (3 Jan 2011 04:19:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2011 04:19:15 +0000 (UTC) Cc: MON KEY , jasonr@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jan 03 05:19:10 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PZbsy-0004lk-2D for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 03 Jan 2011 05:19:08 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:60238 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PZbsx-0008Gx-Ff for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 02 Jan 2011 23:19:07 -0500 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=46419 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PZbst-0008Gi-A7 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Jan 2011 23:19:04 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PZbss-0003lC-A3 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 02 Jan 2011 23:19:03 -0500 Original-Received: from mgmt1.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.223]:58231) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1PZbsr-0003jp-Ot; Sun, 02 Jan 2011 23:19:02 -0500 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mgmt1.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 224F73FA0563; Mon, 3 Jan 2011 13:18:54 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 2F85F120684; Mon, 3 Jan 2011 13:14:13 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM undefined under 21.5 (beta29) "garbanzo" ed3b274cc037 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:134188 Archived-At: Richard Stallman writes: > 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? This refers to running the software on the vendor's host, and delivering only the service to the user. This makes conventional (free or proprietary) software licensing moot, of course. Probably the best way to think about SaaS is as ASP2.0. SaaS fanchildren like to claim that SaaS as a business model is qualitatively different from ASP, but it really is not. It is the marriage of the ASP business model with Web2.0 technology, but the fundamental concept is enabling a pay-per-play revenue stream. The most basic implementation provides an AJAX interface, so that redisplay is done by manipulating HTML (or XML) and CSS efficiently, but the underlying data (such as an ODF document or an RDBMS) is never directly accessed by the user. I don't know what Oracle is planning for OOo, perhaps turning the redisplay into an arm's-length client, perhaps rewriting it to target Web2.0 technology instead of local GUIs. I don't think this will change Oracle's opportunistic attitude toward "open source" as they call it. They'll use it, and contribute to it, where they see an advantage, but they'll also use SaaS to generate sustainable/predictable revenue streams without the risk inherent in delivering software to entities not under NDA. > The issue is important because OpenOffice is important. I suppose you're right, but I'm sad to hear you say so. One wishes it wasn't so. WYSIWYG is one of the greatest productivity-sappers ever invented. > People who want to use ODF need to install OpenOffice anyway, I hope you're wrong. It should be possible to have any2odf converters, for values of "any" like "restructured text" or "perldoc" as well as "TeX" or "DocBook", and odf2any, for values of "any" like "TeX" and "PDF". And Emacs itself should be adaptable to manipulating ODF just as it handles DocBook or TeX. "AUC-ODF", anyone?