Committee Draft 01 of ODF 1.2: Formula specification missing (change of modal verb and conformance requirement)

[Jesper Lund Stocholm <4a4553504552@gmail.com>]

Hi all,

While commenting on Doug Mahugh's blog on
http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/archive/2009/02/19/building-consensus-around-odf-1-2.aspx
I noticed that ODF 1.2 still lacks a way of specifying formulae used
in spreadsheets.

Section 18.648 table:formula states:

"Every formula should begin with a namespace prefix specifying the
syntax and semantics used within the formula."

First,

I believe the word "should" must be replaced with "shall". Having
unqualified formulas does not make any sense in this highly critical
area of spreadsheet usage.

Second,

Q: Is it the intention to have OOF ready for Part 2 for approval of ODF 1.2?

If so, the namespace of
"urn:oasis:names:tc:opendocument:xmlns:openformula:1.0" should be
added to the list of known namespaces in section 1.3 thereby making it
the conformant way of specifying formulae in ODF 1.2.

If OOF will not be ready for ODF 1.2 approval, I think the only viable
option is to include the way of IS29500 as the conformant way of doing
formulas in ODF 1.2. I don't think there is a namespace currently in
use for spreadsheet formulae in IS29500, but I am sure WG4 will be
helpful with registering one for this purpose.

Jesper Lund Stocholm
www.idippedut.dk
SC34/WG4 http://www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/wg4/