[odf-discuss] Alex Brown on OOo ODF validity

[marbux]

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 8:13 PM, <robert_weir at us.ibm.com> wrote:

>
> Paul, for sake of argument, let's say you were right on the legal
> analysis.  Just hypothetically.


So understood.


>
> The testing of ODF, even if we take Alex's rather flawed validation test,
> showed only three deviations types from ODF 1.0 when dealing with a 5,000
> page volume of the OOXML text.  One was repeated thousands of times, a
> soft-page-break on every page, a feature that only ODF 1.1 has.  That would
> be trivial to fix -- just comment that line out of the OO code.  Next was an
> invalid URL in a hyperlink.  Easy to fix -- just add code to OO to validate
> URL syntax when adding a hyperlink, to prevent bad user input.  The third
> problem was an unknown use of "style:for", something not defined in ODF 1.0
> or ODF 1.1 or even ODF 1.2.  Again, that could just be removed.
>
> So, if you were right on the legal analysis, and such a threat did come,
> does anyone serious think that the above problems would be a show stopper?
>  These seem like things that one could fix in an afternoon.  Sure there may
> be other, similar types of problems,  but from a technical perspective,
> making a version of OO that wrote out conformant ODF 1.0 should not be
> difficult, if there was a demand for such a thing.
>
> I think you're probably right as to ODF 1.1 >> ISO/IEC:26300 since the
changes were fairly trivial. But  might it not be more problematic as to ODF
1.2 >> ISO/IEC:26300? I have in mind here the list enhancement feature and
the RDF metadata support, both of which I suspect are more widely integrated
in the unreleased OOo code base.

I'd have to think about it some more, but I  suspect the Formula SC's work
would not pose a huge problem since this work fills in some unspecified
blanks in ISO/IEC:26300. But there are arguments Microsoft could make that
ISO/IEC:29500 is now the international standard for spreadsheet formulas,
since none were specified in ISO/IEC:26300.

That's why I'd love to see the Formula SC work parted out as a separate
standard and sent off to JTC 1 as a candidate replacement for the
corresponding chunks of ISO/IEC:29500. It would be a head-to-head face-off
between vendor neutrality and vendor lock-in with ample support in the
Directives and international law. Who knows? W3C might also be recruited in
such an effort given that they have corresponding holes in the CDF WICD
profiles. Or perhaps try selling the Formula SC's work to W3C for
incorporation in their work before sending it on to JTC 1.

Returning to the subject at hand, might not OOo also require some
reprogramming as to processing markup expressed in ODF 1.1 and ODF 1.2 but
not in ISO/IEC:26300? Governments would still be receiving files in those
two formats.

And perhaps most importantly, would Sun allow the code to be committed to
the OOo code base? Sun's control of the commit rights has long been a sore
issue. See e.g., <
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9037499>.


By my read of the file format situation Sun is much closer to Microsoft
these days than it is to IBM. E.g.:

"This change is important to Sun in ensuring that our position is correctly
represented. We wish to make it completely clear that we support DIS 29500
becoming an ISO Standard and are in complete agreement with its stated
purposes of enabling interoperability among different implementations and
providing interoperable access to the legacy of Microsoft Office documents."

<http://www.ibiblio.org/bosak/v1mail/200707/2007Jul16-081558.eml>; see also
<http://www.durusau.net/publications/co-evolution.pdf> ("My work on
OpenDocument Format 1.2 is being sponsored by Sun Microsystems although I am
not an Sun employee."). Durusau's 11th hour role in getting OOXML through
JTC 1, leaning heavily on his ODF Editor position sponsored by Sun, is
pretty hard to blink past, as is this photograph and article. <
http://adjb.net/index.php?entry=entry080409-221633>.

It may well be that you have relevant information I don't have. But as one
not privy to IBM-Sun private dealings, I can't avoid the question of whether
Sun might block commitment of the changes in the OOo code base we are
discussing.

Best regards,

Paul
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