list-override proposal

["Florian Reuter" <freuter@novell.com>]

Hi,

I’ve been thinking about the list-id/list-override proposal the whole weekend. Since we’re going to vote today and list-id/list-override I just want to summarize my main objectives:

1. Backward compatibility.
The list-id changes the actual number of a paragraph. The list-id makes is impossible for old readers compute the right number.

2. Roundtrip fidelity.
The algorithm described by Oliver to convert between list-id and numbered-paragraph contains non-deterministic choices. So the conversion between list-id and numbered-paragraph will be non-deterministic which results in a very bad user experience. (My opinion :-))

3. List-id and list-override solve the same use cases.
My understanding is that the list-id and list-override approached solve exactly the same problem and that list-override is better suited to address backward compatibility.

For reasons of 1-3 I can not support the current proposal which mixes list-ids and list-overrides.

To be a good TC member I updated the pure list-override proposal according to some concerns from Oliver and would like to offer this for vote too.

And Thomas: My objection to the list-id has nothing to do with personal issues; like not being able to accept a good compromise. Guaranteed. It’s just that I’ve been persuaded by ODF users on conferences etc. that stability of the file format is the most important thing. This is the only reason I object to the list-id approach. But I value your believe as a developer that a list-id is more cool than a list-override on a technical level but --- in my opinion --- it harms the stability of ODF.

Thanks for the patience and the professionalism in discussion and thanks for considering my concerns. 

~Florian

numlistpar.odt