[odf-discuss] Response to Andy Updegrove's article about the Foundation

[marbux]

On Feb 6, 2008 11:33 PM, Chris Puttick <cputtick at gmail.com> wrote:

> You see, I still don't get it. What's not to interoperate with an
> openly published specification? Under multiple vendor control? What is
> more open and interoperable? Convince me.


Hi, Chris,

Would you believe that the table of contents alone for comparison of
interoperability strengths and weaknesses of ODF, OOXML, and CDF is a full 4
pages in a word processing document and the body text is over 100 pages not
counting the glossary and other appendices and is still growing?  Intending
no disrespect whatsoever, the place for me to do what you ask is on the web
site rather than on a mailing list. It would duplicate effort and cut into
my time mightily to perform the same task in two forums. :-)

While I have done thorough research, I will be grateful for any constructive
criticism at any time. I long ago achieved journeyman status in the practice
of committing errors and I want the information on the web site to be as
high quality, reliable, and neutral point of view, as a community of
knowledgable people can achieve. My quest is for accuracy, relevance, and
consensus among folks who know aspects of the subject matter and share my
ultimate goal of an open and interoperable infrastructure for the
information society.

One of the first major hunks to go up will be the glossary of terms. I would
particularly appreciate feedback on it, at any time but the sooner the
better. It's presently 17 word processor pages and is nearly ready to go up
as a beta release.

I am working on cross referencing glossary links at the moment, Many of the
terms are highly interrelated. That is the last major task remaining before
release of the glossary beta for review, bug reports, and feature requests.
I anticipate that there will be at least minor errors; I was unable to date
to find citations for every nuance of every definition so had to wing it
here and there.

I see identification of a common working vocabulary as fundamental to
building consensus on issue resolution, not to mention to understanding what
I write and what others will write in the future once I get Drupal in shape
to allow others editing rights. When we get to that stage, the site will be
moderated but there will be hopefully appropriate permissions of different
levels for contributors and editors, etc.

The subject matter is cross-discipline, so I expect that all participants
will have things to learn, including myself. The glossary is intended as a
living document that will be refined and grow, but it is also intended as a
major anchor point of the site's content, with wiki-style linking to defined
terms from other content pages.

The working title is:

--   *THE INTEROP GLOSSARY  --*
*
An evolving vocabulary for the law of interoperability
governing electronic document standards
and technical regulations*

I think this will be a project that is both intellectually challenging and
fun. It has been so far for me.

Best regards,

Paul Merrell ("Marbux")
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.opendocumentfellowship.com/pipermail/odf-discuss/attachments/20080207/3d0c480a/attachment-0001.html