Re: RTF - proprietary or open?
On 7/9/07, Celejar <celejar@gmail.com> wrote:
Which brings us back to my original point; why not RTF? It's apparently
a fairly open format, and apparently virtually all word processors can
read and write it.
rtf is NOT OPEN: we have a technical reference but we don't have a
license to use it and we don't have any say in the technical reference
and the only entity that has a say is a ruthless competitor. What's so
hard to understand about it?
NO LICENSE, NO SAY = NO OPENES.
Still don't get it? Sory I've done my best. BTW: A few posts ago I
provided the same reasons with more details and you replied with
"Thanks, I understand your points". What exactly was it that you
understood?
A reminder follows:
ND: [...] You will have noticed
ND: already that it's hard to find the license for the implementation of
ND: RTF. Have you? Hundreds of pages of technical documentation and no
ND: license makes me nervous and it's *THE* reason for me not to use RTF
ND: when the licensor is a company like Microsoft and I want to help it's
ND: main competitor.
The full reply to the above:
CE: Understood. OTOH, a leading OSS product (Abiword) recommends
CE: RTF for document exchange, and that counts for something to me.
so I clarify:
ND: [...] The times
ND: have changed and we can't ignore legal issues any more. If microsoft
ND: offers no clear/solid commitment regarding what we can and what we can
ND: not do with their specifications then we should be searching for
ND: alternatives as soon as possible. In between you may use the spec as
ND: long as you don't get very dependent to its usage because some day you
ND: may very well read some threats in the press about the hundreds of
ND: patents/terms/IP rights or whatever Microsoft thinks your usage
ND: violates
and your full and final reply to the above is:
CE: Thanks, I understand your points.
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