Microsoft says the top Linux distribution in Asia-Pacific, Turbolinux, is joining Novell, Linspire and Xandros in creating document translator tools.
At its annual WorldWide Partner Conference, Microsoft said Turbolinux, the leading Linux distribution in Asia-Pacific, would help develop tools to translate documents between the OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Open XML, an Ecma standard.
Novell, Linspire and Xandros are already part of the Open XML-ODF (Open Document Format) translator project, which is being run from the SourceForge Web site. All three of those vendors signed a cross-licensing patent deal with Microsoft before the June 29 release of the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3, which contains provisions against such patent deals.
MICROSOFT SUBNET
The independent voice of Microsoft customers.
Today’s top news, blogs, security alerts.
Turbolinux was rumored to be considering signing a similar deal before the GPLv3 release, but an agreement between the company and Microsoft never materialized.
TurboLinux distributes a version of OpenOffice.org and the translator will add read/write support for Open XML.
Microsoft also said that more than 1,150 partners from 50 countries and six continents have registered support for Ecma-376 Office Open XML File Formats, the official name of the document standard.
Ecma 376 is based on a format developed by Microsoft called Office Open XML, which is the default file format in Office 2007.
Open-document formats have been the subject of substantial debate since the state of Massachusetts decided to move away from proprietary formats more than two years ago.
Since then, Microsoft has developed its XML-based format, submitted it to Ecma and had it approved, and lobbied hard against state legislation to adopt open-document formats.
Just last week the first crack in ODF-only support emerged, as Massachusetts proposed adding Microsoft-developed Open XML to its list of approved open-documents formats.
Massachusetts’s Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM) 4.0 was sent out for public review July 2 and listed under its major revisions “Ecma-376 Office Open XML File Formats.”
The draft is open to public comment until July 20. The final draft, which will become official state policy, is expected at the end of the month, Massachusetts officials said.
The ETRM 4.0 draft is drawing response and stirring controversy, including comment from Andy Updegrove, a lawyer, a board member of the Linux Foundation and a Massachusetts resident.
“Microsoft is hardly to be blamed for lending no support to the success of ODF. But neither should it be rewarded for launching a competing, self-serving standard as a next-best defense against erosion of its dominant position,” he wrote in comments submitted to the Massachusetts Information Technology Division.
“As one who has long studied and promoted the importance of open standards, I urge [Massachusetts] to hold the marketplace to a higher standard, and to refuse to include Ecma 376 on its approved list.”
