[odf-discuss] Does OO.o violate OpenDocument? If yes, where?

[marbux]

On 11/17/06, M. Fioretti <mfioretti at mclink.it> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have just read on a mailing list I follow this thesis:
>
> "since OO.o doesn't support all of ODF yet (1), today distributing ODF
> files made with OO.o isn't at all a feasible solution for
> "distributing documents in an advanced open standard like ODF".
>
> (1) was linked to the summary of
> http://netmoc.cpe.ucf.edu/Projects/OpenDocument/TestSuite.html
>
> Now, if a program doesn't support all of ODF, this doesn't mean at all
> that the files produced with it _violate_ the standard, does it? It
> only means that you can produce with it only _some_ kinds of
> *perfectly* valid ODF files, namely those which don't need the
> unsupported features.

I have been doing some deep-diving on a closely related issue. You
have it right, I think. See section 1.5 of the 1.0 specification,
"Document Processing and Conformance."
<www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/12572/OpenDocument-v1.0-os.pdf>.
(But note that implementation of the "foreign elements" portions of
that section are slated to change from "should" to "must" in ODF 1.2.)

So long as OOo preserves metadata containing processing instructions
inserted by another app (app 1) and/or any foreign elements , as
recommended, OOo is producing conformant ODF.

I don't know whether OOo in fact implements section 1.5, but I would
be truly surprised if it does not.

>
> The only way in which the statement above can be true is if OO.o
> already supports a specific feature of OFD, but in a way that actually
> and explicitly _violates_ the standard, right?
>
I suspect you are right but someone more knowledgeable than me should
speak to that issue.

> Now, does this actually happen with OO.o and ODF 1.0? Is it true that
> you can produce .odX files with OpenOffice which violate OpenDocument?

Well, you can always use OOo to edit the XML source directly. :-)

Best,

Marbux