Re: [office] Single XML file

[Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net>]

Jos,

Thanks for the quick summary!

Would you or someone you would like to volunteer be willing to see what 
needs to be added to make the single file format match the package 
format? RDF being one instance, I suspect there will be others.

I don't think omitting the single file format will make the standard 
than much shorter, I was more concerned with the single file format 
being underspecified and the resources it would take to specify it.

If we can find people who are willing to devote the resources necessary 
to align the two formats, I might feel differently about it.

Hope you are having a great week!

Patrick

PS: Reserving judgement on the zip issues. Haven't thought about that 
aspect in a while.


On 08/29/2012 05:17 PM, Jos van den Oever wrote:
> On Wednesday 29 August 2012 17:47:31 PM Patrick Durusau wrote:
> > Greetings!
> >
> > Since there are almost three weeks until the next TC meeting, I am
> > hopeful that everyone can decide if the single XML file format option is
> > something they really need? See:
> > https://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/OFFICE-3781
> >
> > It is probably doable, but I don't see the value-add from keeping it as
> > an option.
> >
> > Thoughts/suggestions?
> It is good to revisit features to see if we still need them.
>
> The single xml file format for ODF is tremendously useful in my opinion, for a
> number of reasons. I will list what I think are reasons pro and contra the
> single xml format.
>
> Pro
> ---
>
> - easier to create than zip
> - easier to read than zip
> - easier to make diffs, which is useful for people that put ODF in version
> control systems
> - it is being used, notably by LibreOffice and WebODF
> - is useful for web based office suites because of easy file -> DOM mapping
> - can be embedded in other XML files
>
> Contra
> ------
>
> - it makes the specification larger
> - it is not widely supported even though it was introduced in ODF 1.0
> - the file size is larger
> - it does not have all the features that the zip file has (e.g. rdf is not
> supported at the moment)
>
>
> The missing RDF support can be fixed, at which point there are not so many
> downsides to keeping the single file format.
>
> If this topic came up for a vote, I would vote firmly in favor of keeping the
> single file format.
>
> Cheers,
> Jos
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: office-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: office-help@lists.oasis-open.org

--
Patrick Durusau
patrick@durusau.net
Former Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)

Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net
Homepage: http://www.durusau.net
Twitter: patrickDurusau