Formula_Conformance_20090111?

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Greetings!

As everyone knows we are pushing forward towards a committee draft on 
part 1 but I don't want to lose sight of pending issues with regard to 
part 2! ;-)

I posted a fairly extensive set of notes on the first five chapters of 
part 2 under the file name in subject line.

As a starting point for discussion (not pre-judging where the discussion 
will lead) I propose the following principles for revision of the 
conformance chapter:

1) That the conformance clause be structured in accordance with the 
OASIS rules (see the conformance clause for part 1 for an example of 
such a clause).

2) That the conformance clause address the conformance of values for 
text:formula and table:formula (which are identical as far as I can 
determine from the current prose in part 1. that may be incorrect in 
practice but if we want to enshrine that usage in ODF 1.2 then we had 
better say so).

3) That the conformance clause address the conformance of applications 
that process values for text:formula and table: formula in terms of 
their adherence to the semantics as defined by part 2.

Note that #3 means that application conformance is not specified in the 
abstract but only with regard to values for particular attributes 
defined by OpenDocument and whose value spaces are defined by OpenFormula.

Actually, having written that prose, I think that in order to make that 
approach work that the datatypes and other parts need to be examined 
with a view towards whether they are relevant for those values or not. 
It might be interesting to speculate on what applications outside of 
that space may do but I don't see the utility of it in this document.

Having said that, I also think that serious consideration needs to be 
given to using extant data types and other standard definitions. The 
purpose of standards is to create, well, standards, and it doesn't 
inspire a lot of confidence if a standard re-defines its field in an 
attempt to become "the" standard.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)