[odf-discuss] What is actually necessary and found only in OpenXML?

[marbux]

On 6/1/07, Alex Hudson <alex at stratagia.co.uk> wrote:
>
> marbux wrote:
> > What you argue in effect is that the Foundation's plug-in may
> > allowably wrap MSWord metadata that can't be mapped to ODF within
> > foreign elements and attributes, but that OOo when it receives the
> > file is free to destroy the metadata required for the document to be
> > translated back to MS Word format because OOo has scant support for
> > the foreign elements and attributes. Now the Foundation's plugin gets
> > the file back from OOo and needs to open it in MS Office, but the
> > metadata needed to preserve the MS formatting is gone.
>
> This is exactly true.


Actually, it isn't quite because I made a mistake. Sorry. In the next to
last line, "needed to preserve" should be "needed to restore."

> What's wrong with this picture? Under the ISO definition of "MAY,"

> > nothing. Under the RFC 2119 definition, OOo has just violated its
> > requirement to interoperate with the Foundation plug-in/MS Word even
> > though OOo does not support the foreign element and attribute features.
>
> No, it hasn't violated the requirement. The requirement for
> "interoperation" is that OOo work with the ODF output of the plugin, not
> that any optional feature of that output be supported. If OOo didn't
> accept a file with foreign attributes, that would be breaking the
> requirement.


Like I said, you're treating interoperability as a one-way street. It isn't.
And support for a feature is not the same thing as preserving the metadata
required by the application that does support the feature.


It's really, really, really simple. Anything marked "MAY" does NOT need
> to be implemented, under any circumstance. Any other understanding is
> plainly wrong.


True, but irrelevant. The issue is not implementation of a feature, but
preservation of metadata needed by other apps. And the RFC 2119 definition
of "may" means that if it is required for interoperability, you have to
preserve it. That's interoperability as in round-tripping.


> The raw truth is that ODF is not designed for interoperability and has
> > few interoperability features. ODF's key interoperability requirements
> > for interop with non-conformant apps went out the window when the RFC
> > 2119 definitions were toggled to ISO.
>
> Pure FUD.


Pure evasion.


> Right now, less featureful apps can't interoperate with OOo.
> > Right now OOo can't interoperate with less featureful apps.
> >  Right now, ODF apps can't interoperate with MS Office. Right now,
> > ODF, in the words of Sun and IBM's representative, "is essentially
> > worthless."
>
> I'm sorry, this is complete tosh.


We disagree, obviously.
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