[office] Formula Sub Committee Draft Charter

[Michael Brauer - Sun Germany - ham02 - Hamburg <Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM>]

Dear TC members,

please find below a revised formula SC charter. It is based on Robert's[1] 
and David's[2] feedback, and may replies to it[3][4].

[1] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200601/msg00073.html
[2] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200602/msg00026.html
[3] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200602/msg00028.html
[4] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200602/msg00029.html

Best regards

Michael



OpenDocument Spreadsheet Formula Sub Committee (FSC) Draft Charter
==================================================================

Statement of purpose
--------------------
To create a specification for a formula language that should be used in 
OpenDocument spreadsheet documents as value of the table:formula attribute 
specified in section 8.1.3 where apropriate.

[Note: OpenDocument already supports the inclusion of arbitrary formula
languages for spreadsheet documents. Furthermore, it already uses XML
namespaces to uniquely identify the formula language used within a certain
formula. The purpose of this SC therefore is not to define a formula language
that covers all, sometimes very application dependent, aspects of existing
formula languages, but to define an application independent and, compared to
existing formula languages, possibly restricted formula language that can be
used in all cases where non of the application dependent aspects are required.]

The resulting specification must meet the following requirements.

1. It must specify a grammar for formulas.
2. It must specify a well defined processing model. The description of the
    processing model  should be oriented on the description of processing
    models of programming languages.
    [Note: Since office applications are implemented using programming
    languages, formula languages have the same platform dependence regarding
    the precision of float calculations as programming languages; for this
    reason, it seems to be reasonable to orient the the processing model
    specification on programming language specifications.]
3. It must specify a basic function set. The basic function set must be
    extendible in future versions of the specification.
    [Note: Functions sets correspond to function or class libraries of
    programming languages. The basic function set corresponds to the build-in
    function or class libraries of programming languages.]
4. It must define a method to reference implementation-defined extension
    functions
    [Note: These correspond to additional function or class libraries that are
    deployed for interpreted programming languages.]
5. The specification must provide a list of implementation-defined,
    unspecified and undefined behaviors in the processing model.
    [Note: Ideally, application specific formula languages can be (re-)defined
    as extensions to the formula language specified by this SC. This may
    require extensions to the processing model, for instance implicit type
    conversions.]
6. It must be friendly to conversions from and to existing office application
    spreadsheet formula languages.

Deliverables
------------
1. A written specifications for spreadsheet formulas in plain English that
    can be used with the OpenDocument v1.0 specification, and also can be
    included into a future version of OpenDocument. This specification shall
    be delivered in two phases:
    1. A specification for the formula grammar (syntax).
    2. A specification for the processing model and the basic function set
      (semantic).

Scope of work
-------------
The subcommittee's work is to create a base specification for a spreadsheet
formula language to be used with OpenDocument. The specification shall permit
the creation of OpenDocument spreadsheet documents whose formulas are
exchangeable between applications.

Manner and schedule of work
---------------------------
The work of the subcommittee will be primarily through conference
calls and a mail list set up by OASIS for subcommittee work, or other IT 
tools provided by OASIS for TC work. Access by the public will be through an 
openly available mail list archive.

Conference calls will be scheduled on a regular basis as agreed by the sub
committee after its formation.