[odf-discuss] plug-in and ODF 1.2 (was: Miguel on OXML)

[Peter Vandenabeele]

On 2/1/07, marbux <marbux at gmail.com> wrote:
...
> I am told by the Foundation's developers that, once we have
> applications that are conformant with ODF v. 1.2, full
> interoperability is an achievable goal. It will be feasible to map
> every Office feature to ODF.

I would be interested in understanding how that will work, without
at least containing or refering to certain elements of the EOOXML
spec in "extensions" or "meta data" of ODF 1.2. How will this work
while still allowing all applications (open source and proprietary)
to faithfully interprete the ODF 1.2 that contains this additional
information without relying on the EOOXML spec (particularly the
non-specified parts), or implementation details in the plug-in?

At least this wiki entry on the use case of Roundtrip improvement
suggests including extra meta data to preserve information from
"alien" formats.

  http://wiki.oasis-open.org/office/Roundtrip_improvement

> Until that time, ODF files generated in Microsoft Word using the
> da Vinci plug-in will not be fully compatible with, e.g., OpenOffice.org
> and KOffice.

Which conflicts the essential _goal_ of the Open Standard: to be
interoperable between all applications and thus avoid vendor lock-in.

Of course, if by the summer (with ODF 1.2) we have a full solution,
that would be great. But I would prefer to better understand how
that solution will impact the ODF 1.2 standard to achieve this goal
and how that will keep ODF 1.2 interoperable with _all_ applications.

Looking forward to your clarification.

Thanks,

Peter