[odf-discuss] Alternative to the Foundation plugin

[Thomas Zander]

On Sunday 04 February 2007 12:14, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> Marbux has asked if I have a better alternative to the Foundation
> plugin. He talks about the need for 100% fidelity, and argues that
> extending ODF with unknown binary blobs ("dark objects") is the only way
> he knows to achieve this. Marbux asks if I have another idea to achieve
> 100% fidelity.
>
> As a matter of fact I do.
[]
> 3. Like the Foundation plugin, it extends ODF. But the "dark objects"
> won't be dark at all. They'll be XML and mostly documented.

This point completely misses the goal. Having a readable file does not make it 
better. Quite the contrary.
The goal of storing data that would otherwise be lost in the conversion is to 
be able to not loose that data.  And nothing more.
No application should ever try to read those dark objects, except the one that 
saved them there.
So making things readable XML is a bad thing as people might get the idea that 
its something that OOo should read and handle.  Which basically means you 
extended ODF without creating a specification.  Which is a really bad idea.

> If we feel that the Foundation method (extending ODF) is acceptable,
> then asking Clever Age to extend ODF with OXML is even more so.

The foundation plugin is not extending ODF.
-- 
Thomas Zander
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/pipermail/odf-discuss/attachments/20070204/4c849bbf/attachment-0001.pgp