RE: [oiic-formation-discuss] Charter and Deliverables: the "State of Interoperability" assessment activity

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>]

SUGGESTION:

Add to 1c. Scope of Work

"0.	Development and progressive improvement of a methodology for
carrying out impartial surveys of the current state of conformance and
interoperability among ODF implementations and for reporting the results of
such surveys."

(Adjust item 1 accordingly, if needed.  I considered merging this into item
1 but decided it made things too unwieldy.)

Add to 1d. List of Deliverables

"0.	Initial procedure and methodology for the first survey of the
current state of conformance and interoperability among ODF
implementations."

Add to 2a. Similar work

"We note the work of Rajiv Shah and Jay Kesan, "Lost in Translation:
Interoperability Issues for Open Standards - ODF and OOXML as Examples,"
(September 2008). The Proceedings of the 36th Research Conference on
Communication, Information and Internet Policy (TPRC), Arlington, VA, Sept.
26-28, 2008
Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1201708  This work, its
references, and similar comparisons among ODF implementations as well as
translation efforts may inform the initial approach to surveying the current
state of ODF conformance and interoperability and determining priorities for
the development of conformity-assessment methodology specifications."


-----Original Message-----
From: robert_weir@us.ibm.com
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oiic-formation-discuss/200808/msg00009.
html
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2008 08:57
To: oiic-formation-discuss
Subject: Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] Charter and Deliverables: the "State
of Interoperability" assessment activity

 
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oiic-formation-discuss/200808/msg00004.
html
> CONCERN:
> 
> I am startled to see assessments of the state of interoperability to
> be defined as the earliest work to be carried out.  I don't 
> understand how this showed up with such prominence.  I would think 
> that there are methodological issues and that maybe there needs to 
> be some precursor to establishment of this activity.

[ ... ]

It would be a big waste of time, for example, if we blindly started 
writing 100 test cases for text alignment, and only later found out that 
all implementations did that feature perfectly, whereas table nesting was 
an area that was the cause of many practical interop issues.

Remember, most TC efforts start with either a contribution of a base 
specification, or a requirements gathering stage.

-Rob