ODF Adoption Technical Committee Meeting Minutes, Meeting of June 6th, 2006

[Alan Milnes <MILNEA@uk.ibm.com>]

ODF Adoption Technical Committee
Meeting Minutes, Meeting of June 6th, 2006
==========================================

Roll Call
=========

Don Harbison, IBM
Erwin Tenhumberg, Sun Microsystems
Alan Clark, Novell
Martha Mealy, IBM
Roger Hurwitz, Intel
Marino Marcich, Software and Information Industry Association
Mary McRae, OASIS
Carol Geyer, OASIS
Waldo Bastian, Intel
Gary Edwards, ODF Alliance
Timothy Vaverchak, ITD, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Rob Weir, IBM
Alan Milnes, IBM

Minutes of meeting on 30th May 2006
=====================================

The minutes were accepted without revision.

Agenda
=======

The proposed agenda was accepted with the addition of a discussion item on
Apache Web Server recognising ODF Mime Type.

ODF policy developments in France, Denmark and Sweden
======================================================

Marino Marcich updated the Committee on recent developments.  The Danish
parliament had adopted a parliamentary decision requiring the Executive to
introduce a policy favouring open Standard by January 2008. Don asked if
there was any help the committee could provide, Dr. John Gotze was on the
roster of the committee and based in Copenhagen.

In France current policy was very favourable to ODF but the situation was
being closely monitored to ensure there were no adverse changes.

Stockholm - City Council piloting a move to Open Office. If this was
similar to the move in Munich we should ensure any lessons learnt are
implemented. Erwin to check with a contact in SUN Sweden.  There were also
similar projects in Vienna and Bristol where documentation was available
and linked to on our TC Web Site.

There were some developments in Brazil and Switzerland but little details
were available right now. The Brazilian Institute for Information and
Technology, an official government body, had joined the ODF Alliance.

ODF Web site, on XML.org
========================

Carol reported that we were ready to launch this, 2 main sponsors were
lined up.  There would need to be an editorial board, an email requesting
for volunteers had been issued and Carol would issue a follow-up shortly.
Activities include driving the content, deciding on content, posting
company press releases, monitoring and responding to comments.  It was
agreed that the editorial board would be a separate list from the TC.

OpenOffice.org Conference
=========================

Call for papers ended yesterday, now the organising committee would look to
establish the Agenda from these.
A number of submissions on ODF were made and there should be an ODF track
available.

Status on ODF Subcommittee work
===============================

a) Accessibility
Gap Analysis received, this includes recommendations to address the gaps.
ODF TC had accepted the report. There had been a face to face meeting
during the process and this had proved very useful - there was some
potential innovation in the publishing field with DAISY (Digital Talking
Book) using ODF.

b) Open Formula
Work continued to develop the formula specification. Rob Weir outlined the
roadmap for integrating developments on this and accessibility. Don
suggested that it would be good to publicise this as it would emphasise the
open process ODF was using for development.

c) Metadata
Gary Edwards explained that progress was a bit slow due to other
commitments by some of the parties. Rob outlined some of the issues with
the approval process for ODF and Microsoft Open XML and making sure
appropriate links were in place with the various parties.

Other business
==============

Google and web-based spreadsheet
The committee noted this development and were seeking to identify which
format Google was using. Gary believed that Google were waiting for the
Apache Foundation and the Free Software Foundation to endorse ODF,
particularly the licensing model, before making any direct move to support
it. It was suggested that the committee could drive this and ensure Eben
Moglen was comfortable with the OASIS position. Gary and Mary to work an
outline of the issues so that Eben could be approached by Patrick Gannon,
Erwin offered his help in making an introduction.

The meeting was adjourned at this stage.

Regards,

Alan Milnes
IT Architect
Security, Asset & Risk Management - New Business
IBM United Kingdom Ltd.

Tel: (+44) [0] 7764-660 709 (Mobex: 272952)
Internet: milnea@uk.ibm.com