Re: [office-comment] Foreign elements and attributes

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

"MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given)" <eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp> wrote on 
02/06/2009 03:26:18 AM:

> 
> Dear colleagues,
> 
> I believe that foreign elements and attributes should be allowed.  This 
> looks obvious to me.
> 

We've had this feature in ODF since 2005.  But even though we've had many 
programs implement ODF, they have not used this feature.  In fact, all of 
the implementations I know of will simply strip out any foreign markup it 
encounters.  So if it is such a useful feature, how come in 3 1/2 years no 
one has bothered to find a use for it or to support it in their products? 
That's why I favor removing it from the ODF core.  Having it there just 
makes work for implementations to write code to handle it "just in case", 
even though no one currently uses the feature.

Why do you think the foreign markup should be allowed?  I prefer to have 
features in ODF that will be used, not to add features speculatively in 
the hopes that someone, someday will use it.

> I even think that some of the current elements and attributes should 
> be moved to foreign namespaces so that ODF becomes as small as possible.
> (I do not think that it is a good idea to introduce many features 
> to ODF for the competition of OOXML.  Rather, ODF should try to become 
> XHTML MP for Office Documents, IMHO.  Many users and developers would 
> welcome such a lean and mean specification.)
> 

Did you have any particular features in mind that should be removed from 
ODF?  Or are you just stating that in general you think ODF should have 
less functionality? 

I believe you chair the committee that maintains OOXML in SC34.  If so, 
you have more direct influence there.  Maybe you should consider stripping 
out functionality from OOXML and make it lean and mean rather than having 
it try to compete against ODF. 

> ODF 1.0 is expected to become a JIS this year.  (I have received 
> a number of comments from the reviewers.  Ouch!)  If ODF 1.2 is 
> proposed as an extension of ODF 1.0 and lacks foreign elements and 
> attributes, I will certainly argue that they should be allowed when 
> Japan considers the ODF 1.2 PAS submission. 
> 

I believe the plan is to submit ODF 1.2 via PAS process to JTC1, not as an 
amendment to ODF 1.0.  I assume the DIS would eventually end up in J/SC34 
for review.

Regards,

-Rob