Re: [office] OASIS-SC34 ODF Maintenance Feedback?

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

ODF was not on the official agenda.  SC34/WG1 handles ODF, but Okinawa was 
only a meeting of WG4and WG5.

As you may have heard there was an informal phone call on the subject of 
defect reports and maintenance.  Patrick and I participated in that call, 
as well as OASIS's Director of Standards, Jamie Clark,  at the invitation 
of the SC34 Chairman.   We have a few more phone calls scheduled. 

The goal is to agree to a set of procedures that conform to both SC34 and 
OASIS requirements and which lead to technical equivalent standards in 
both bodies.  I'm confident that we can identify a subset of procedures 
that work well according to both sets of rules.  It is like trying to 
write a program that is both conformant C and conformant C++.  It can be 
done if you avoid some features of C++ and disallow some otherwise 
conformant C constructs, e.g., don't declare a variable called "class". 
Similarly, there are some JTC1 constructs that don't map to OASIS rules. 
For example, amendments.  Fine, just don't do amendments. Reposition the 
proposed technical content of the amendment as a revision of the standard, 
something which can be done in both OASIS and JTC1 procedures.

I think the main change for us will be to formalize some liaison 
appointments, communication channels, publishing the Registry of Comments, 
etc.  So formalize some of the activities we already do.  We might also go 
back to ODF 1.0 (second edition) and formally set that out for a ballot as 
an OASIS Standard, so there is a direct analogue of ISO/IEC 26300:2006 in 
OASIS.

But nothing has been decided yet.     If you or any other TC member has 
specific advice or concerns on the subject, please send it along to the 
list.   I'll personally push for the principle that nothing should be 
agreed to until reviewed and approved by this TC.

-Rob


"Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org> wrote on 02/02/2009 
12:56:24 PM:


> 
> Please respond to dennis.hamilton
> 
> Is there any feedback from the Okinawa meetings with regard to 
> maintenance of ODF and handling of defect reports?
> 
>  - Dennis
> 
> Dennis E. Hamilton