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Subject: TC Proposal Submitted
This morning I submitted the following TC formation proposal to OASIS, and shortly thereafter I received confirmation of its receipt. This submission will trigger a series of activities within OASIS including a two-week member comment period on the proposal, a teleconference to review any comments received, followed by a 30 day Call for Participation leading to our first TC call, which is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, October 22nd at 1400 GMT. I'd like to thank all of those who actively participated on this TC formation discussion list, or shared ideas with me offline. Although we may not have agreed on everything, I think the proposal benefited from this broader discussion, and is better off for having had this scrutiny. OASIS members who are interested in participating in this new TC should keep their eyes open for the Call for Participation and mark their calendar for the October 22nd initial meeting. If you are not yet an OASIS member and would like to participate, then the first step is to join OASIS. More information on membership is available here: http://www.oasis-open.org/join/ If you are not interested in participating, but have ideas, test cases, or other material that you would like to contribute to the effort, then hold on to that for now. Once the TC is officially formed and met, there will be a public comment list for the TC by which such contributions may be made. If you have questions on any of these topics, do not hesitate to contact me directly. The work of this discussion list is complete. We formally have nothing remaining to discuss. Regards, -Rob ================================================================================================== TC formation proposal 1a. Name OASIS OpenDocument Format Interoperability and Conformance Technical Committee (OIC TC) 1b. Statement of Purpose The OpenDocument Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) OASIS Standard defines an XML schema for office applications and its semantics. The schema is suitable for office documents, including text documents, spreadsheets, charts and graphical documents like drawings or presentations, but is not restricted to these kinds of documents. There are several commercial and open source applications available based on the OpenDocument Format, with more currently under development. With the depth and breadth of functionality specified by OpenDocument Format (ODF), achieving conformance and interoperability requires attention to numerous details and diverse requirements. It is the purpose of the OIC TC to produce materials and host events that will help implementors create applications which conform the ODF standard and which are able to interoperate. 1c. Scope of Work In accordance with the OIC TC's purpose, the scope of our work will include the following activities: 1. Initially and periodically thereafter, to review the current state of conformance and interoperability among a number of ODF implementations; To produce reports on overall trends in conformance and interoperability that note areas of accomplishment as well as areas needing improvement, and to recommend prioritized activities for advancing the state of conformance and interoperability among ODF implementations in general without identifying or commenting on particular implementations; 2.To collect the provisions of the ODF standard, and of standards normatively referenced by the ODF standard, and to produce a comprehensive conformity assessment methodology specification which enumerates all collected provisions, as well as specific actions recommended to test each provision, including definition of preconditions, expected results, scoring and reporting; 3.To select a corpus of ODF interoperability test documents, such documents to be created by the OIC TC, or received as member or public contributions; To publish the ODF interoperability test corpus and promote its use in interoperability workshops and similar events; 4.To define profiles of ODF which will increase interoperability among implementations in the same vertical domain, for example, ODF/A for archiving; 5.To define profiles of ODF which will increase interoperability among implementations in the same horizontal domain, for example ODF Mobile for pervasive devices, or ODF Web for browser-based editors. 6.To provide feedback, where necessary, to the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC on changes to ODF that might improve interoperability; 7.To coordinate, in conjunction with the ODF Adoption TC, Interop Workshops and OASIS InterOp Demonstrations related to ODF; 8.To liaise on conformance and interoperability topics with other TC's and bodies whose work is leveraged in present or future ODF specifications, and with committees dealing with conformance and interoperability in general. The following activities are explicitly not within the Scope of the OIC TC: 1.Acting as a rating or certifying authority or agency for conformance of particular ODF implementations; 2.Authoring or distributing software that tests the conformance or interoperability of ODF implementations; 1d. List of Deliverables 1.Initial report on the state of ODF conformance and interoperability (March 1st, 2009); 2.Report on the best practices on profiles and recommendations on possible ODF-related profiles (April 1st, 2009); 3.A conformity assessment methodology specification, detailing how each provision and recommendation in the ODF standard may be tested for conformance (May 1st, 2009); 4.Interoperability test corpus documents, released in batches, according to functional area (several incremental deliverables, Q4 2008 through 2009) 1e. IPR Mode This TC will operate under the "RF on Limited Terms" mode 1f. Audience The direct audience of the OIC TC's work will be: 1.Implementors -- Commercial and Open Source publishers of ODF native or compatible applications and tools. 2.Testers -- Third-party testing and certification labs. 3.Procurers -- Those who purchase or define requirements for the purchase of ODF-related technology. 4.Regulators -- Officials who specify the use of document standards. Other, indirect users of the TC's work may include: 1.Integrators -- Third-party developers and independent software vendors who interact with and/or integrate ODF. 2.Users -- End Users of ODF applications and tools, including both typical and "power" users. 1g. Language of the TC TC business will be conducted in English. 2. Informative information 2a. Similar work We note the work of Lotzi Bölöni at the University of Central Florida and his initial work in defining an ODF "test suite", work now maintained by the Open Document Fellowship: http://develop.opendocumentfellowship.com/testsuite/ We also note that the work of the OASIS Test Assertions Guidelines (TAG) TC may be of use to us in defining test cases: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=tag Sun Microsystems has has also done some work related to ODF conformance testing: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/openoffice_org_odf_validation_service We note that the W3C has test suite work efforts pertaining so several of the standards which ODF references, including MathML and XForms. We would expect to consult with them on any overlapping topics. We also note the work of Rajiv Shah and Jay Kesan, "Lost in Translation: Interoperability Issues for Open Standards - ODF and OOXML as Examples", 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 TC's initial approach to surveying the current state of ODF conformance and interoperability and determining priorities for the development of conformity assessment methodology specifications. Finally we observe that the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC owns the development of the ODF standard, with all that it implies, including the definition of conformance for the various versions of ODF. The OIC TC's work does not overlap with it, since its scope would not include defining conformance for ODF, but defining test cases (preconditions, specific test actions, expected results) that are traceable to the provisions of the ODF standard and referenced standards. 2b. First meeting. The initial meeting will be by telephone, hosted by IBM, and will occur on 22 October 2008 at 1400 GMT. 2c. Meeting schedule We anticipate meeting, by teleconference, initially every week as we prepare for an interoperability workshop in November, and then reverting to a normal alternate week meeting schedule 2d. Minimum membership who support this proposal. 1. Robert Weir, robert_weir@us.ibm.com, IBM 2. Bart Hanssens, bart.hanssens@skynet.be, Individual 3. Dennis Hamilton, dennis.hamilton@acm.org, Individual 4. Zaheda Bhorat, zaheda@google.com, Google 5. Charles-H. Schulz, charles-h.schulz@arsaperta.com , Ars Aperta 6. Michael Brauer, michael.brauer@sun.com, Sun Microsystems 7. Donald Harbison, donald_harbison@us.ibm.com, IBM 8. Alan Clark, ACLARK@novell.com, Novell 2e. Convener: Robert Weir/ IBM 2f. Member section affiliation: None 2g. (optional) Contributions: None 2h (optional) FAQ's: N/A 2i (optional) Working titles and acronyms for specifications: None.
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