Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] My perspective. Extensions

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

"David Gerard" <dgerard@gmail.com>
wrote on 07/01/2008 03:26:10 AM:

> 2008/7/1  <robert_weir@us.ibm.com>:
> 
> > I'm aware of this behavior in the past.  In fact through
the 1980's and
> > 1990's almost all word processors relied on document formats
that were
> > proprietary and mostly undocumented.  However, I am not
aware of this being
> > a problem with ODF applications today.  Maybe someone can
point me to an
> > example of where this is a problem?
> 
> 
> That's like saying "I am unaware of ODF mail clients today that
> encourage automatic execution of data as code, so there's no reason
to
> discourage it." Surely it's inherently problematic behaviour
and its
> direct encouragement of failure of interoperability has been
> explained. Is there any actual useful reason to encourage it, thus
> constructing a loophole the size of an eight-lane freeway tunnel?
> 

I guess that comes down to the purpose of the TC.
 If the purpose of the TC is to improve ODF interoperability, then
I think that documenting, publicizing and enforcing guidelines that no
one is breaking would be low priority on our list.  Improving interoperability
needs to start from evaluating what causes interoperability problems now,
today, and providing solutions to those problems.   

We'll aim to be comprehensive in the end, and cover
all of the ODF standard, including statements about extensions, etc.  But
if we look around and find that say, no one today is currently extended
ODF, but that 80% of implementations are getting nested tables wrong, then
wouldn't we start our work by defining test cases for tested tables?  

I'm assuming that, like any other project, we have
limited volunteers and limited time, and that we need to prioritize our
work so we accomplish the most for our goals with the resources that we
have.

-Rob