[odf-adoption] ODF Adoption TC Call - October 24th 2006 - Minutes

[Alan Milnes <MILNEA@uk.ibm.com>]

Roll Call
=========

Donald Harbison,        IBM
Robert Weir,            IBM
Marino Marcic,          ODF Alliance
Alan Clark,             Novell
Gary Edwards,           OpenDocument Foundation
Alan Milnes,            IBM

Minutes
=======

No minutes were approved as were not quorate.

XForms Essay
============

Rob summarised the comments he had made on J. David's essay on XForms and
ODF, it was felt the Technical content was excellent but the Business
benefits needed some more focus. Don had some contacts within IBM who would
be able to help with this, as they were working on evangelism of emerging
standards.

ODF White Paper
===============

Feedback had been sent to Erwin and it was hoped to finalise the paper next
week.

Main TC Committee
=================

Work was ongoing for 1.1 (accessibility) and 1.2 (formulas and metadata)
versions of the ODF standard - there were various logistical problems round
putting these to the vote including timescales and quorums.

It was suggested that perhaps there should be information on the website
regarding future developments highlighting the items in development. Marino
offered to publicise a summary of the developments in his newsletter. Don
would write to the Chairs of the relevant committees / sub-committees
asking them to regularly send updates on their work.

Developer Topics
================

Alan Milnes asked about any developments for creating ODF files via PHP.
Rob mentioned that there was multiple ODF projects on Source Forge
including one called OpenDocumentPHP. It was agreed that Rob would lead an
off-line effort to review each of these projects and prioritise them for
deeper investigation including interviews.

Roundtable Update
=================

Marino updated the committee on the work of the Alliance. There were 325
members (50% Europe; 30% USA; 20% Rest of World). Marino had presented at
an eGovernment Seminar in Buenos Aires to 600 government officials from
Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. There was a meeting yesterday in Brussels of
all European members to discuss ways to collaborate and influence
governments. Every country is unique so there was not a one size fits all
approach. There was little to report in Asia. The Alliance's mandate is to
focus on Government adoption.

Gary reported there was a lot of activity in the government and University
sectors in California, not specifically ODF but Open Source in general.

Harvard's Berkman Centre held a one day conference on User Perspectives on
ODF last Friday. It was interesting to hear consumer perspectives. One
argument that resonated was the need to ensure that Government's didn't
mandate one piece of software to interact with them - e.g. Internet
Explorer for submitting forms. Gary mentioned that most consumers resented
having to pay for upgrades just to keep access to their own data.

There are some ongoing discussions / events at the UN regarding Open
Standards but we did not appear to have any contact with this. This was a
general issue in terms of keeping abreast of it. Marino volunteered to
encourage his members to keep him updated on local events and he would
update the website.

The meeting was adjourned at this stage.

Regards,

Alan Milnes
IT Architect
Outsourcing Infrastructure Solutions
Service Delivery Operations
IT Delivery Operations (UK, Ireland and South Africa)
IBM Global Technology Services, EMEA

Tel: (+44) [0] 7764-660 709 (Mobex: 272952)
Internet: milnea@uk.ibm.com