RE: [office] Choice of Authoritative ODF Format for Specifications

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>]

David,

I don't think there is any problem with uploading ODF 1.1 documents and
contributing text produced in ODF 1.1 format, regardless of the version that
the specifications are identified as being saved as.

In fact, I would be surprised if there is anything in the ODF 1.2
specifications themselves that cannot be handled with ODF 1.0 documents,
since the ODF 1.1 specification is such a document.  

What appears to be the common tool for producing the specification drafts,
OO.o 3.2.0, has the option of producing ODF 1.1 documents and it would
probably be useful to rely on that rather than have any suggestion that an
ODF 1.2 consumer is required for proper reading of the specifications.  (I
am told there are some discrepancies with how numbering works, and I don't
know if that is an implementation bug or there is a breaking change from 1.1
to 1.2 that matters for the specification itself.)

Someone who is aware of any substantive difficulty producing and consuming
the current specifications as ODF 1.1 should say what the problem is, if
any.

 - Dennis

PS: I think the "ideological" objection is using a tool that has, since last
year, claimed to be producing ODF 1.2 documents when the draft
specifications have not even begun their first combined public review as I
type this.  While I doubt that the specifications so-produced will be judged
to fail to be ODF 1.2 documents at some future point, it is an irritant for
some of us, perhaps for different multiple reasons (having at least 3 of
them myself).

PPS: FYI for the bystanders.  It is incorrect to claim that the editable
form of the ODF 1.0 specification is in ODF 1.0.  It is identified as a
Star/Open Office format that happens to be consumed successfully in later
OO.o versions.  I note that a non-OO.o ODF 1.1 consumer I have does not open
it successfully.  On inspection of its Zip packaging and the files therein,
it is clear that it is not an ODF document of any flavor, even though it
resembles ODF in many ways if you ignore little things such as the 100%
difference in namespace bindings and mimetype value and the fact that there
are external DTDs that the XML parts depend on.  
   FURTHERMORE The editable form of the OASIS ODF 1.1 Standard specification
is explicitly identified as an ODF 1.0 document and I have no doubt that is
what it is.  

PPPS: I also notice that, as often happens when older documents are used as
bases for editing newer ones, every part of ODF 1.2 draft 4 *except* Part 2
(OpenFormula) still has the metadata title "OASIS Open Office
Specification."  This leaks onto the Windows title bar for the PDF versions,
the ones I suspect most people read.  Whether or not this is some sort of
Freudian truth-in-labeling entertainment, we should probably clean this up.
I shall submit an appropriate JIRA issue.


-----Original Message-----
From: David LeBlanc [mailto:dleblanc@exchange.microsoft.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 08:19
To: Andreas J. Guelzow; office@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [office] Motion for approving ODF 1.2 as Committee Draft and
submitting it for public review.

Andrew said:
> That does not mean that we should compound the issue by repeating the
same for ODF 1.2. I fail to see why we could not use ODF1.0 or ODF1.1 to
publish the ODF1.2 specs rather than the OpenOffice.org internal format
(that some like to call ODF 1.2).

I've been attempting to stay out of this, as it has nothing to do with
encryption. I do have a question though - it would seem that a simple
document with headings and sections would be using features of the
specification available in 1.0. Unless the standard document itself needs
features new to 1.2, then wouldn't the 1.2 version be really the same as the
1.1 version, excepting the version number? In other words, isn't this a moot
point?

I do have a small problem with needing to produce proposals for encryption
related things in 1.2, as the software on my laptop will only do 1.1, and it
would be a nuisance to install something else to produce a few paragraphs.
I'm trying to understand whether this is truly a practical issue, or just an
ideological issue.
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