Re: Re: draft proposal 0.3 - Establishing the conformance landscape

[david_marston@us.ibm.com]

>> is me
> is Dave Pawson

>> Based primarily on sections 1.5 and 1.7,
I see
>> references to the conformance of four classes of product:
>> (A) Conforming reader or display application
>> (B) Conforming producer of ODF, that is not an ODF editor
>> (C) Conforming reader-writer, such as an ODF editor
>> (D) Conforming ODF documents
...
>>Also note that classes A-D above will have
different stakeholders, as
>>addressed in part 1f of the charter. I think we should strengthen
the
>>protection for class (D) stakeholders by explicit acknowledgement
>>that some indirect beneficiaries hope to issue
ODF documents that
>>will be permanently guaranteed to be readable
by a conforming (A)
>>reader.

>Sorry. I've just read that twice and don't understand it. My attempt
>at simplification.

>Some users want to assure longevity for their files on disk?
>The archived document? Is that it?

That's part of it. The stakeholder I had in mind is
a government body
that needs to issue "official government documents"
that are part of
the permanent public record. If these documents are
computer files,
they need to outlast the disk or server on which they
were first
created. The government does not want to force its
citizens to buy
(or even download for "free" but contingent
on signing a contract)
a particular kind of single-source software to read
its documents.

They want to use a class (C) or (B) tool today to
produce a class (D)
document that will be readable by the class (A) tool
of 2083. That
may be a lot to ask, but I think that stakeholder
position needs to
be represented at this TC.
.................David Marston
IBM Research