Re: [office-comment] Fw: [members] Public Review of OpenDocument v1.0Errata - 15 day review

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

"MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given)" <eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp> wrote on 
08/13/2008 12:37:30 PM:

> Dear colleagues,
> 
> First, I am happy to see that some of the defects reported by Japan 
> last year are going to be addressed at OASIS finally.  The defect 
> report is available at:
>    http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/open/0942.htm
> 
> However, it is difficult to tell which of the defects are 
> addressed by which correction.  Remember that the JTC1 directives 
> require responce to each of the reported defects even when it
> turns out to be incorrect.
> 

What you have now is a public review of a draft of OASIS Approved Errata, 
based on comments submitted to the TC's public comment list. 

I'd expect that once approved by OASIS, it would be transmitted to JTC1, 
and at that time it would be accompanied by a cover letter that keys each 
erratum to a numbered item in your defect report, classifies each comment 
as editorial or technical and provides a disposition for each comment. 
That would be my recommendation.  Until that happens, it may be difficult 
for you to correlate the Approved Errata with your original reports, since 
we sorted items in the Approved Errata by order of clauses in the 
standard, rather than the arbitrary order of your comment submissions. 

> In my understanding, some of the defects reported by Japan are not 
> addressed.  Their numbers are:
> 
> 4
> 6
> 7
> 30
> 40
> 51
> 69
> 71
> 74
> 76
> 78
> 89
> 98
> 
> Does the ODF TC believe that they are not bugs?  Or, are you still 
> studying them? 
> 

The TC expresses no opinion on comments not addressed in this draft 
Approved Errata document.  Personally, I found that most of your comments 
were of the trivial editorial variety.  I cannot imagine that any of them 
would be controversial or require more than a cursory glance.  So I would 
like to hear from Patrick on whether these items indeed are missing and if 
so, why.

> Furthermore, none of the errors I reported after the Japanese defect
> report appear to be addressed.  I will compile them and try to make 
> Japanese SC34 submit another defect report very soon. 
> 

You submitted a new comment even today.  Obviously, until you finish your 
review, we cannot address all of your comments.  We must pick a cut-off 
date and send an available set of errata through the process.  We can then 
repeat that periodically to include new batches of comments.

I can assure you that we have all of your comments as sent to this list, 
and as recorded in our Public Comments Registry.  Creating a defect report 
with redundant material, as you suggest, will merely cause clerical delays 
which will slow, not hasten the processing of your comments.   I want to 
ensure a speedy resolution to all of your reported typographical errors as 
much as you do.  The way to do that is continue sending your comments to 
this public comment list.

Of course, since you seem to have so much time available to create these 
defect reports, why not just join the ODF TC and prepare the response 
document as well?  Surely, you already know the response to almost every 
comment you send us. 

Take for example, your comment today:

"fo:columns-count in 15.7.3  should read   fo:column-count (singular)". 

Well, what would a good response be to this?  Maybe "Replace 
'fo:columns-count' in 15.7.3  with 'fo:column-count'"

This isn't rocket science.  It is also not a high priority on the TC to 
fix every last trivial typographical error in the ODF 1.0 standard.  I'd 
rather put the effort into fixing errors in ODF 1.2.  But if it is a 
priority for you to fix trivial typographical errors in ODF 1.0, I've just 
suggested a way for you to ensure that it happens at a pace of your 
choosing.

If the $300 membership fee is a problem, I would gladly pay the OASIS 
membership fee for you, out of my own pocket.

Regards,

-Rob