[odf-discuss] A bit more detailed explanation of the AFNORposition

[marbux]

On 9/27/07, Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera at zmsl.com> wrote:
>
> marbux wrote:
> > Here we go again with another Daniel Carrera straw
> > man argument.  I've never said that *all* foreign elements and
> > attributes need to be preserved.
>
> Only ones needed for interop? You can't know which ones those are. I say
> that all the elements in my example are critical for interop.


There you go again with another straw man argument. You've selectively
deleted portions of my reply to misrepresent what I said and you shoot only
at your own contrived misrepresentation of what I said. I gave you plenty of
clues for you to have a learning experience. But not Daniel.  You deleted
all the clues I gave you, deleted my discussion of the need to revise the
spec to include an interop framework, and deleted the discussion of what's
already been accomplished except for a short and fallacious rejoinder on
what's been done in WordPerfect. Here is Wikipedia's description of what you
did:

> Quote an opponent's words out of context -- i.e., choose quotations that
> are not representative of the opponent's actual intentions
>
> Oversimplify a person's argument into a simple analogy, which can then be
> attacked.
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man>


> > [ii] in one circumstance says conforming apps *should*
> > process their contents; and [iii] in another circumstance says that
> > conforming apps must preserve their content:
> > [snip]
> >       If the attribute's value is true, or if the attribute does not
> >       exist, the element's content /should/ be processed by conforming
> >       applications... If the element's content should be processed, the
> >       document itself /shall/ be valid against the OpenDocument schema
> >       if the unknown element is replaced with its content only.


Your not-very-creative snip of the conformance requirements that I quoted
speaks loudly about your principles here.

That does not say that applications shall or should preserve foreign
> elements. It says that the content should be processed and that the
> document shall be valid ODF if the unknown elements are replaced with
> their content only.


We were discussing content that is metadata. Can't you at least create a
more challenging strawman?


> Furthermore, you still evade rather than come to grips with the concrete
> > real-world example of WordPerfect. WordPerfect 6 can still round-trip
> > documents with WordPerfect 13
>
> Corel knows WP 6. I can make DCWord 1 that writes the sample ODF I wrote
> and I can write DCWord 12 which round-trips with DCWord 1. But good luck
> anyone else round-tripping with DCWord 1.
>

Another straw man. My point was that WordPerfect has an interop framework that
was first introduced in WordPerfect 6.0 requiring only a single generic
element to enable non-lossy round-trip interop with future versions with
unforeseeable features and that it is stark proof that there can be an interop
framework created in the ODF spec to handle the same kinds of problems. The
WordPerfect interop framework has little to do with "knowing" WordPerfect 6.
In fact, Corel pink-slipped every last former WordPerfect Corp. and Novell
developer in 1999. The company has not had any developers who "know"
WordPerfect 6 for about eight years. But Corel has developers who have since
learned to work with the interop framework and its conformance requirements.
And WordPerfect 6 keeps chugging along, unaltered, doing nonlossy round-trip
interop with all later versions of WordPerfect despite the fact that the
later versions' feature sets were unknown when WordPerfect 6 was created.

Your simplistic analogy simply ignores all of my discussion of the need for
ODF to acquire an interop framework. and interop conformance requirements
that are available and mandatory for everyone who works with the spec. Or in
the words of the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives that you also try to ignore,
"*[s]tandards
designed to facilitate interoperability need to specify clearly and
unambiguously the conformity requirements that are essential to achieve the
interoperability*." But you selectively deleted all of my discussion of interop
frameworks and pretend the discussion was about something else. Classic
straw man argumentation.

You are a troll Daniel. You approach me only with personal attacks and straw
man argumentation. You do not speak to me; you pretend to speak to me while
trying to dismantle my credibility with the other list members. I noticed
that you broke pattern enough not to have led your latest post with yet
another personal attack depicting me as an ignoramus who should be ignored
because your choice of "experts" (who have never dealt with the subject
matter) say I am wrong. But you are still trying to start an argument with
me with only straw men left in your quiver. You approach conversations with
me as some sort of contest where points get awarded. I have no desire to
argue with someone who begins and ends conversations in attack mode and is
willing to depart from first principles of civil discussion just to score
points in an imagined debate.

So I'll close by saying it again. You are a troll, Daniel. Get a life. Stop
trying to draw me into an argument with transparent unprincipled
argumentation. I do not want to argue with you and I am not your punching
bag. Stop treating me like I am.



BUCK "MARBUX" MARTIN
  Director of Legal Affairs
  OpenDocument Foundation
  Contact:
<http://www.opendocumentfoundation.us/contact.htm>
-- Universal Interop Now!
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