Re: [office] Public Comment #217 - Authoritative Version of Specification

[Mary McRae <marypmcrae@gmail.com>]

Sorry, but I can't resist.

If the authoritative version of the spec is to be an XML format, then  
that would be content.xml. I don't expect that most people reading the  
spec would even *know* that there was an error in the display unless  
they were comparing two different versions, and would then have  
difficulty trying to parse out the XML itself. They would still be  
left with the question - which one is right? Particularly if one  
implementation happened to drop some XML, they wouldn't even know it  
was missing.

I agree that PDF can introduce errors, and am usually a proponent of  
the editable source as the authoritative format for the reasons Robin  
already stated.. I am beginning to think, however, that any TC using  
some flavor of OpenDocument should have to declare the particular  
tool, as I too see differences in content depending on if I look at  
the file in OO or Symphony. I don't have other OpenDocument tools  
uploaded to test, but I'm guessing some things would render  
differently depending on the tool's capabilities and conformance level.

The reality is that whatever output format is deemed by the TC to be  
authoritative, the TC must carefully review that output to ensure that  
it is accurate in all respects.

Regards,

Mary


On Mar 30, 2009, at 5:10 PM, robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:

> "Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org> wrote on 03/30/2009
> 12:23:57 PM:
>
>>
>> RE: [office] Public Comment #217 - Authoritative Version of
> Specification
>>
>> I think, as a practical matter, the defects that occur when one  
>> uses an
> ODF
>> implementation that is not the one used for the authoring are far  
>> more
>> disturbing than the blemishes you remark about concerning  
>> disparities in
>> PDFs derived from the as-authored ODF documents.  There is a problem
> with
>> the current state of interoperability for ODF consumers in comparison
> with
>> the ubiquity and stability of PDF at this point.
>>
>
> The issue of course is not whether PDF is rendered more consistently  
> than
> ODF is.  The question is whether the PDF that is initially generated  
> is
> accurate.   For example, during the OOXML review in ISO we found many
> examples, usually involving mathematical equations, where the  
> generated
> PDF varied significantly from the Word original.  These introduced  
> real
> technical errors into the draft, in some cases changing the meaning of
> spreadsheet formulas.  A good amount of JTC1 NB time was chewed up
> correcting such problems.  This problem would not have happened with  
> an
> ODF or OOXML original, regardless of the rendering engine, since once
> could always look at the XML source to resolve the intent.
>
> -Rob
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this mail list, you must leave the OASIS TC that
> generates this mail.  Follow this link to all your TCs in OASIS at:
> https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/portal/my_workgroups.php
>