Re: RE: [office] Our Position on the Conformance Proposal

[Warren Turkal <turkal@google.com>]

I think that there is value in knowing that a document contains no
extensions. In fact, I think producers should aim to use as few
extensions as possible to do what they want. If documents are produced
without extensions, it should be easier for consumers to implement the
functionality needed to process that document.

In conclusion and even though I am not a voting member right now, I
support the no-extension conformance class. I hope that it will
represent the way the the vast majority of documents are produced so
that we will have the greatest variety of consumers. The part I don't
like of the dual conformance clauses is that it even allows something
that has extensions to be called ODF. Defining this standard is, for
me, about interoperability and not about allowing mass divergence from
the standard through extensions. Otherwise, what point is there in
having the standard?

Sincerely,
wt

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 18:56, Doug Mahugh <Doug.Mahugh@microsoft.com> wrote:
> I think Stephen answered your question, but I'd add that I never thought there was a compelling reason for two classes of conformance.  I could imagine a person wanting a particular extension, or not wanting it, but I can't imagine why a person would want to forego any and all extensions.  And even if a particular person wanted that (which I accept, since there are clearly person on the TC who seem to want that), I don't think we should add conformance classes to support all such possibilities.  Some users (working with the blind, for example, or working through extremely slow network connections) might prefer documents that don't have images in them, but I don't think we need a no-images conformance class either.
>
> Regards,
> Doug