New Members by ODF improvements

[Svante Schubert <svante.schubert@gmail.com>]

Dear TC members,

allow me to send you the reference of the latest draft of the change-tracking specification (I will upload it as soon the OASIS server are back running).
The reason to sent to the TC  is that I like to point out two additional new possibilities for ODF applications which were often unnoticed in the past.
My hope and aim is that we could try to win new TC members from companies of the Real-Time collaboration area.

Although we only started to extend the feature set of the existing ODF XML change-tracking, we more or less incidentally enabled the new possibilities of

1. Automated ODF regression testing
   Instead of just loading and saving a test document (which unchanged always should semantically be the same), we may now load a test document, apply defined changes and check the XML for changes to proof the ability of a feature. To be able to automate the load, save and applying of operations (or undo of a stored delete change) would be required. This would save years of manual testing and increase the overall ODF application quality. 
   
2. Real-Time collaboration (the data perspective)
   The changes of editors in an ODF application can be distributed by the operations defined for change-tracking. Even a mapping between dialects of operations is possible.
   Unfortunately it is unlikely that ODF applications will be able to cover only those changes for collaborate that they are covering for change-tracking.
   

For the basics you may read in the beginning the overview and concept of the referenced draft attached.

Looking forward to discuss further details these abilities on the change-tracking call next week (and to give an update on the next ODF TC call).

Best regards,
Svante

Attachment: OpenDocument-v1.3-wd01-part5-changetracking.odt
Description: application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text