[odf-discuss] Alex Brown responds to Rob Weir

[Michiel Leenaars]

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Hi Alex, Daniel, all,

I think putting ODF applications seriously through some pain tests is
actually a great idea.  People need to be able to rely on strict output,
if they want a predictable document life cycle based on ODF. Of course
many of us might have preferred Alex (now on this list, welcome!) to
mention that there were only five errors in the document - any teacher
will tell you that a verbatim repetition of an error in an essay does
not count, and that inconsistency will. The second posting generously
recognises this. Of course this mercy would also go for the hundreds of
thousands of OOXML errors in his previous test, but my hunch is that
there were more than five error types there ;).

What I would really love to have is even more rigid testing - of ODF
(and even if I don't care too much about OOXML, testing might be even
more relevant there). The transformed OOXML specification is just
peanuts when it comes down to the real thing - actual spec validity
across the entire gamma of XML elements. The Fellowship ODF test suite
is a great start, but it is just a lot of work to complete - which is
why uptake is slow and we don't have the results from the majority of
apps. Of course it can be automated (like Girish Ramakrishnan is working
on right now for KOffice2), but it is too bothersome for the end user to
test and retest with new releases (which might be daily, for web apps).

So what we need is some sort of 'Acid2/3'-test (as made famous by the
Web Standards Project, http://www.acidtests.org) for ODF - that way we
can start being serious about interoperability. With many applications
now being able to handle ODF, now is the time to go for quality.

If there is anybody out there that would be willing to contribute to
such an effort, let me know ...

Best,
Michiel Leenaars
NLnet foundation
Kruislaan 419
1098 VA Amsterdam
The Netherlands
+31 (0)20 8884251

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