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

[Alex Hudson]

marbux wrote:
> "It will be mandatory to preserve all MS Office metadata and dark
> objects in an ODF file."
>
> That's the full fidelity part. And it isn't just MS Office metadata
> and dark objects, ODF developers' apps will be required to preserve
> ODF metadata not supported in their own apps.

That's not quite right. The "full fidelity" thing only applies to 
*proprietary* data - if you're an ODF compliant application, you're not 
allowed to throw away random pieces of the ODF file, whether you 
understand them or not. You are allowed to throw away non-ODF data right 
now.

Going on to Gary's e-mail, some things seem quite stark:

> The Da Vinci plugin sent to Massachusetts on August 10th, 2006, and 
> demonstrated to (and approved by) both the Handicap Council and the 
> division CIO's was our first ODF 1.2 implementation.  ... 
> Interoperability with OOo was determined to be about 65% fidelity.

So, 65% fidelity between "Da Vinci" and OOo, as it stands now.

Then:

> Well, it doesn't happen overnight.  That's the first thing.  But it
> will happen over time because the mechanism of describing these dark
> binary objects will in place with ODF 1.2.  As it is, years of reverse
> engineering has the conversion of these binaries at over a 85%
> conversion - mapping to ODf ratio.

Currently, then, OOo gets 85% fidelity loading MSO files.

So, the OOo can achieve 65% fidelity via ODF with Word & Da Vinci, or 
85% fidelity (presumably, not much of which is lost when saving to ODF) 
with Word alone.

While I understand that saving all the Word "dark matter" as foreign 
data in ODF is useful, and that ODF 1.2 will allow Da Vinci to a. be 
sure that its "dark matter" isn't thrown away, and b. is marked as MSO 
"dark matter" so that someone else can try to decode it, I don't really 
see how improves ODF interoperability. I certainly don't see how ODF 1.2 
will allow Da Vinci to improve from it's current 65% ODF fidelity :(


Alex.