An important article has just been published by Bruce Byfield. It highlights conflicting roles and views in the ODF/OOXML debate, which divide Novell and GNOME, respectively. BoycottNovell.com is actually cited by Linux.com (not for the first time), the context being its views on OOXML, Mono, GNOME, Novell and whatever entwines them. Familiarisation with these issues is probably required.

After Microsoft "bought" OOXML support from Novell, the company's PR reps suggest that it is bad practice

Or both? ALEX Brown is pretending that all is fine and dandy with OOXML (he even shows a picture of a smiling face), despite all the OOXML corruption which had people protest out in the streets.

In yesterday's conference in Europe, Novell was once again used as a selling point for Microsoft and lock-in

Not just Mono but OOXML too is being used by Novell to promote and to spread Microsoft formats with software patents

Novell hires more spinners (Hotwire) and pro-OOXML splogs are showing up

Update on OOXML, ODF, OpenOffice.org deployments, and OpenOffice.org FUD from Novell

Michael Brauer, the OpenOffice.org XML project lead and OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee Chair, has written a blog entry about the progress of native Office Open XML (OOXML) import filter development for OpenOffice.org. Brauer explains the importance of supporting OOXML in OpenOffice.org and also describes some of the challenges associated with supporting an emerging document format.

Remember Open Office XML – a name chosen to be as confusingly close to OpenOffice XML as possible – better known as OOXML? Remember how just over a year ago this and many other blogs and news outlets were full of sound and fury, as OOXML slouched its way through the ISO standardisation process?