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Subject: Re: [opendocument-users] Re: [office] style name uniqueness (Re: [office] OpenDocumentTC Meeting Minutes 2006-01-09 and 2005-12-19)



Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera@zmsl.com> wrote on 03/14/2006 05:51:04 AM:

>
> Another note: We also need to decide if we care about backwards
> compatibility. If we require either of the above, some currently valid
> documents will become invalid.
>

That's an excellent question, and one the TC should probably reacher a consensus on the general question sooner rather than later, since our choices on this issue and others depend on the answer.

One way of looking it is like this:

1) Versions of ODF that are part of the ODF 1.0 "family" must remain compatible with each other.  This means any document valid/conformant with one revision of the specification is also valid/conformant with the others.  This would limit our changes to errata and new features which can be added in a backwards-compatible way.  Format revisions of the same "family" would share the same value of the office:version attribute.

2) At certain points in the evolution of ODF, we may wish to make larger changes, a big leap forward.  This would result in us issuing a major specification update, e.g., ODF 2.0, and incrementing the office:version attribute.  Backwards compatibility would not be guaranteed.

So, at some stages the goal is simply to make a "good enough" fix, for now, to address an issue without breaking compatibility.  And then at periodic points, perhaps every two years or so, we can make more substantial changes.

It is a tricky balancing act and there is more than one way of looking at this.  

-Rob

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