Re: [office-comment] ZIP specification for ODF 1.2

["Leonard Mada" <discoleo@gmx.net>]

Dear ODF TC,

I am just curious at the following issue:
Is zip a standard?

If it is not, can one legally reference the zip-format within another ISO/OASIS/???-standard?

Then again, why is ODF limiting packages at a specific zip format?

It is clear that the document must be compressed using a standardized
algorithm in order to have all ODF-compliant programs able to open it.

But then again, I would argue that ODF should support at least tar.
Tar is uncompressed, but it is standardized in POSIX.
It may have some disadvantages, but at least it is standardized.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_%28file_format%29]

I may want to have later support for other algorithms,
though I believe something standardized is primordial.
TAR allows saving all files (streams) into a single file,
so no problems arise if the document is passed between
different users. There might be issues with UNICODE names,
though I believe that ODF does not include unicode names
(please correct me if I am wrong), and there are problems
with with random access within the file.

As an advantage, you could readily compress the tar archive
using any common algorithm like those mentioned on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression

Even more powerful algorithms may arise in the future,
so I would not want to limit ODF to an algorithm of the past
[in 10 years it may be well of the past, e.g. Acrobat seems to
 use a different and better algorithm - though I do not have
 any data to back this up].

I would rather want to have additional options to use when
compressing the ODF package.

Sincerely,

Leonard Mada


-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:27:22 +0100
> Von: ronnie thebonnie <ronniethebonnie@gmail.com>
> An: office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
> Betreff: [office-comment] ZIP specification for ODF 1.2

> Alex Brown has recently discovered a 404 when clicking a link for the zip
> specification in odf 1.0.
> 
> > Dear all,
> >
> > The ZIP specification in OASIS ODF 1.0 is
> > http://www.pkware.com/software/enterprise/white_papers/appnote.txt
> >
> > This returns a 404.
> >
> > N.B. the URL here differs from that of IS 26300. What is the explanation
> > for this!?
> >
> > - Alex.
> >
> 
> These problems are showing that odf is lacking very much with the
> zip-specification.
> 
> It would be safer and better way of doing things to include the actual zip
> spec into the odf spec.
> In ODF 1.2 Part 3 for Packages more specifically. Then it becomes a
> standard
> because it's part of odf package.
> Including it makes it easier for developers because it's present in the
> specification.
> And a lot, lot safer of just providing a link to some web page that is
> totally unrelated.
> 
> Request for the actual zip-specification to be integrated into the odf
> specification part 3: packages.
> ODF could also choose the most recent version with the most recent
> features.
> 
> This is possible because there are no dependencies. Another advantage of
> including the actual specification/integrating it.
> Which is preferably, especially with the improvements in 6.3.2
> Using unicode with the unicode flag will make odf actually more standard
> than using other, more proprietary encoding schemes.

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