Re: [office-comment] ODF still fails to specify scripting properly (ODF1.2 CD01)

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

marbux <marbux@gmail.com> wrote on 03/01/2009 03:31:47 PM:

> >
> > OK.  If that is what you are getting at, then I agree.  Even Microsoft
> > Office 2007 makes this distinction. Documents with scripts in them are
> > distinct from those without scripts.  This is good security as well as
> > good for interoperability.  Although the long-term solution may be to 
have
> > a well-defined runtime object model and script bindings, I have no
> > problems with having a conformance class that excludes scripts and 
macros.
> 
> Hey, common ground! :-) But are we still both talking about ODF 1.2?
> To be clear, I'd much prefer that a common scripting language be made
> mandatory for conformance and the necessary specifications fleshed
> out. But interoperability is a threshold requirement under the
> Directives and the governing law. Faced with a choice between full
> specification of conformity requirements essential to achieve
> interoperability and interoperability break points introduced by
> under-specification of extension mechanisms, the law and the
> Directives are clear. Interoperability trumps extensibility.
> 

I'd favor making the distinction in ODF 1.2.

.
.
.

> 
> A parliamentary procedure suggestion:
> 
> If a formal proposal is made to produce one core conformance class or
> profile in ODF 1.2 that fully complies with the JTC 1 Directives
> requirement of specifying "clearly and unambiguously the conformity
> requirements essential to achieve the interoperability" and there is
> an up or down vote on whether to do it, the naysayers will be fairly
> shrieking for pressure from customers and government competition
> regulators.
> 

As a practical matter, if I phrased a question in that way, most members 
would likely abstain.  Since JTC1 Directives are far from unambiguous in 
this and other areas, and the topic clearly has policy and legal 
implications that is out of depth for the average technical contributor to 
the TC, including myself, a large percentage of abstentions and a lack of 
decision would be the natural outcome.  We need to break it down and 
swallow the elephant "one bite at a time".

> Ditto for an accompanying but separate proposal to require that all
> conformant producers of ODF 1.12 Lax provide read/write support for
> the Strict class or profile and the means for users to set Strict as
> the default write format.
> 

I think we are close to this already.  The current draft says that 
Conformant ODF Producers "...may produce conforming OpenDocument extended 
documents, but it shall have a mode of operation where all OpenDocument 
documents that are created are conforming
OpenDocument documents."

> Up and down votes on the two separate proposals forces TC voters to
> take a precise and public position in regard to the desirability of an
> ODF version designed for interoperability and their intent to
> implement it if the proposals carry. If squarely placed in that
> position, I suspect there will be few willing to publicly vote
> anti-interop.
> 

They can always abstain, of course, and approving a draft requires 
majority affirmative votes of all voting members, not just majority of 
non-abstaining voting members.

> That still leaves development of such a profile or conformance class
> for ODF 1.2 and accompanying opportunities to weaken the effort.
> 
> But "establishing a set of 'core' elements and attributes to be
> supported by all implementations" has been in the Office TC Charter's
> scoping statement since the beginning and was supposed to happen in
> phase 1 development of OASIS ODF 1.0.
> <http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/charter.php>.  Some seven
> years after adopting that plan, it's way past time to make the ODF
> interoperability myth come true.
> 

We try to move the ball forward as we can.

-Rob