Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] Caution and Disclaimer on Interoperability

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

"Dave Pawson" <dave.pawson@gmail.com>
wrote on 06/12/2008 03:18:23 AM:

> >
> > In particular, I think a note should be made that
> > interoperability does NOT mean that what an office
> > suite user visually sees and then saves using one
> > "interoperable" or "conformant" application
can be
> > rendered faithfully on another such conformant
> > application.
> 
> This has been stated as a desirable goal for this group.
> If we can't define it, fair enough, it goes. Until then
> lets try.
> 
> 

We should probably also note that end-user expectations
are not merely about appearance. They also expect the structure, the named
styles, and the runtime behavior to be preserved as well.  If you
load a spreadsheet and find that all the named styles had been converted
into direct styling attributes, that vector diagrams had been converted
into raster images, and dynamic fields (like table of contents) had been
hard-coded, then this would not be good interoperability, even if the document
was pixel-perfect identical with the original.

-Rob