RE: [office] Thoughts on ODF-Next

[<thorsten.zachmann@nokia.com>]

Hello,

Michael Brauer wrote:
> What we are developing are OASIS standards, and the CSDs are just
> intermediate draft on our way to the OASIS standards. I'm not in favor
> of using different versions strings, since this may be misinterpreted as
> giving CSD more weight than they have.
>
> But there are other options. We may for instance add an attribute that
> maybe used in content.xml, styles.xml, etc. and which links to the
> schema against wich the file is valid. All schemas we approve will be
> available at docs.oasis-open.org, and the name of the schema contains
> the CSD number. It therefore unambiguously identifies the CSD that has
> been used for the implementation that created a document.
>
> The same method could be used to link extended ODF documents to a schema
> that includes the used extensions. This would allow to validate such
> documents, what is not possible right now.

There is one thing which needs thinking. If a vendor implements a feature as described in a CSD and releases the software using the features there will be documents which use that feature. When then later the feature is changed in a incompatible way applications that don't support the CSD will not be able to show the document correctly which is very bad for interoperability.

What do others think about that?

Thorsten