[ros-dev] Microsoft Office files in the trunk

[Casper Hornstrup]

Subversion handles binary files just as good as text files.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ros-dev-bounces at reactos.org [mailto:ros-dev-bounces at reactos.org] On Behalf Of Reuben Perelman
> Sent: 14. november 2005 04:32
> To: ReactOS Development List
> Subject: Re: [ros-dev] Microsoft Office files in the trunk
> 
> Why use a binary format? Shouldn't you be using ascii formats in a
> subversion repository.
> 
> Mike Swanson wrote:
> 
> >In the branch of press-media, there are two documents currently. An MS
> >Word and MS PowerPoint document.
> >
> >I'm calling for SVN committers for _no more_ MS Office documents. They
> >are a proprietary format, of which not all the features are currently
> >known. I recommend instead the use of OASIS OpenDocument. Not only
> >does it save much space, but it also does not contain any secrets in
> >which need to be reverse engineered to discover.
> >
> >Real life example:
> >I opened the MS Word flyer into AbiWord, and saw strange boxes. I
> >wondered what they could be, so I loaded very-large OpenOffice.org.
> >They are images! Not only that, but the formatting was drastically
> >different in OOo compared to AbiWord. However, in OOo, it did look a
> >lot more jumbled than the image-less AbiWord interpretation. Without a
> >copy of Microsoft Office, I am unable to determine how the documents
> >really should look.
> >I am able to open the PowerPoint file in OpenOffice.org too, but as
> >it's the only presentation software I have, I can't tell to see if
> >there's any other interpretation differences between free presentation
> >programs (assuming they support PPT . . . )
> >
> >OpenDocument isn't just some crazy format that a couple of programs
> >support, either. Two complete office suits which support it are
> >OpenOffice.org and KOffice. Two examples of individual applications
> >supporting it are AbiWord and Gnumeric. By far, these are not the only
> >programs which support it, the number is in the dozens. It's an
> >XML-based format (easy to implement), compressed with Info-ZIP's
> >DEFLATE.
> >Really, Microsoft is the only developer that refuses to use this open
> >file format. They claim that "it doesn't support all the features of
> >Office", but even that shouldn't stop them (weather it's true or not),
> >after all, they use _far_ more limiting formats like plain text or
> >CSV.
> >
> >Please, for the good of the project, use the free OpenDocument format.
> >If not for the reason of being open or free, but simply for the fact
> >that it ensures that everybody will be able to view such documents (no
> >need to buy any pricey office suites here!).
> >--
> >Mike
> >
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> >Ros-dev at reactos.org
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> >
> >
> >
> 
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