ODF 1.2 Committee Draft 1, pp. 1-2

[marbux <marbux@gmail.com>]

Comments on ODF 1.2 Committee Draft 1, mostly (all?) nits copied and
pasted from an earlier version of the standard:

Pg. 1:

"Chair" section should be retitled as "Co-Chairs" and both co-chairs
should be identified along with their affiliations.

Query, whether Michael Brauer is still co-editor? A Sun press release
quotes Patrick Durusau as saying he is "the [singular] editor" for ODF
1.2. <http://blogs.sun.com/ontherecord/entry/patrick_durusau>

Query, whether Patrick Durusau's identified affiliation should be
updated from "individual" to "Sun Microsystems, Inc?"  See ibid. (Sun
stated that Durusau is working as a Sun contractor in his role as ODF
1.2 editor).

Abstract section paragraph 1 currently reads:

>>>

This is the specification of the Open Document Format for Office
Applications (OpenDocument) format, an open, XML-based file format for
office applications, based on OpenOffice.org XML [OOo].

<<<

The paragraph needs rewrite for a variety of reasons.

1. Read literally, the two occurrences of the singular "format"
inaccurately convey the impression that a single "format" is specified
by the standard. The standard actually specifies the product
characteristics of multiple types of electronic documents. The attempt
to merge the name of the TC into the sentence as written conveys
inaccurate information.

2. The products whose characteristics are specified by the
standard-to-be are electronic documents in particular formats. I.e.,
the products specified are not "formats;" they are electronic
documents.

3. The phrase, "based on OpenOffice.org [OOo]," is highly ambiguous.
It can be reasonably understood as stating that the specification is
defined by the format of a a single implementation or that OOo is the
officially designated ODF reference implementation. There is no
formally recognized reference implementation of ODF and not everyone
is familiar enough with the relevant TC history to realize that the
phrase was intended in the sense of "originally derived from."

3(a). The Agreement on Government Procurement in Article VI section
2(b) requires that "technical [procurement] specifications" ... "  "be
based on international standards, where such exist; otherwise ..." The
next paragraph, sub-section 3, states a prohibition:

"There shall be no requirement *or reference to* a particular
*trademark* or trade name, patent, design or type, specific origin,
producer or supplier, unless there is no sufficiently precise or
intelligible way of describing the procurement requirements and
provided that words such as “or equivalent” are included in the tender
documentation."

International technical standards are expected to simultaneously
fulfill the requirements of both the Agreement on Technical Barriers
to Trade and the Agreement on Government Procurement.

"OpenOffice.org" is a trademarked product. See e.g.,
<http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/summary.html> ("'OpenOffice.org'
is trademarked and protected in the USA").  "[R]eference to a
particular trademark" in the standard-to-be thus raises the legal
issue posed by the "unless" clause of the prohibition quoted above.

Reasonable arguments can be made both for and against the particular
passage in the Committee Draft constituting a violation too trivial to
survive opposition, but one may not safely presume that a vendor
pushing a competing standard would not raise such a challenge in the
procurement context. The worst-case risk is that ODF 1.2 if and when
adopted as an international standard might be rendered unlawful as a
procurement specification in all member nations of the Agreement. I
will not at this time discuss the arguments that could be raised on
either side of the issue. The bottom line is that inclusion of the
trademarked name poses a risk easily avoided by removing the reference
to the trademarked product name.

3(b). The phrase at issue conveys no information useful to
implementers of the standard. Even if rewritten to more precisely
identify the intended meaning, it would be no more than a historical
note.

Page 2:


The Status section of the Committee draft includes the following statement:

>>>

For information on whether any patents have been disclosed that may be
essential to implementing this specification, and any offers of patent
licensing terms, please refer to the Intellectual Property Rights
section of the Technical Committee web page

(www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.php.

<<<

I have the following nits to pick with the quoted passage:

-- There is no ending punctuation on the sentence unless the following
line containing the URL is included in the sentence.

-- There is no closing parenthesis following the URL.

-- Perhaps better with a full stop at the end of the text preceding
the URL and allowing the URL to dangle without parenthesis or a full
stop?

-- The referenced IPR statement is a separate *page* linked from the
TC home page, not a "section" of a singular "Technical Committee web
page."

Best regards,

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. (Marbux)

-- 
Universal Interoperability Council
<http:www.universal-interop-council.org>