RE: [opendocument-users] Improvement submissions to the ODF-TC?

["Cody, John (OFT)" <John.Cody@oft.state.ny.us>]

Thanks for your detailed reply, Dennis.  Re:  "It is my personal view that this is not the place to bring claims made by any implementers with regard to the basis for their implementation decisions..."  We differ on that.  The purpose of this list was expressed in its original posting:

"A public, unmoderated mailing list 'opendocument-users' has been created that provides an open forum for developers and users to exchange ideas and information on implementing and adopting OASIS OpenDocument."

	- Is the state a user of ODF?  Check.
	- Is the state a user of the types of IT which implement and adopt ODF?  Check.
	- Will useful information for a user such as the state result from knowing the content of improvement suggestions made by implementers?  Check.  Useful information on how to find that content has already been provided.

I look forward to additional substantive replies.  Henceforth I am going to ignore side alleys like "purpose-of-the-list."  I don't mean that disparagingly but I have limited time and have to focus on substance.  Thanks, John

===============================================

John C. Cody, Associate Counsel
Office of the NYS Chief Information Officer/NYS Office for Technology
http://www.oft.state.ny.us
[The statements expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily reflect the policies, practices or opinions of my employer or anyone else.  Nothing herein constitutes legal advice - if you need legal advice, please consult your own attorney.]

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [mailto:dennis.hamilton@acm.org] 
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 11:54 AM
To: opendocument-users@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [opendocument-users] Improvement submissions to the ODF-TC?

I assume you mean you don't need to be CC'd and that you don't want direct-only responses.

Your mileage will vary on how easy it is to check all of the proposals and discussions for a public observer who has not been participating all along.


It is my personal view that this is not the place to bring claims made by any implementers with regard to the basis for their implementation
decisions, insofar as you expect the ODF TC to be able to comment.    It
might be more valuable to consult with implementers directly and request their provision of concrete details and supporting materials for your independent review, if that is the kind of information you are looking for.

I have provided my personal observations on available material below.

 - Dennis

Dennis E. Hamilton
------------------
NuovoDoc: Design for Document System Interoperability mailto:Dennis.Hamilton@acm.org | gsm:+1-206.779.9430 http://NuovoDoc.com http://ODMA.info/dev/ http://nfoWorks.org 




CURRENTLY AVAILABLE MATERIALS

A number of the deficiencies that have been noted in ODF 1.1 and earlier may have been addressed in the work on ODF 1.2, which is still underway on the committee.  Although we have not submitted any of ODF 1.2 to public review at this point, we are at Committee Draft 02 for Part 1, and we have working drafts for Part 2 (OpenFormula) and Part 3 (Packages).  Part 1 is akin to ODF 1.1 in coverage, although significantly re-organized and with the Packages material separated out into the separate Part 3 document.  Also, we have been receiving comments from various observers and we will be addressing those comments in our work to bring the three parts of ODF 1.2 to a stage that we feel is ready for an official public review and advancing from there toward Committee Specifications and ultimate extensive review and adoption as an OASIS Standard some time after that.  

You can find links to the latest Committee Draft and recent working drafts for other parts on the ODF TC page, under "Open Document v1.2 Specification", <http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office#odf12>.

HOW TO FIND PROPOSALS AND ALL DISCUSSIONS

A list of proposals is available on the ODF TC Wiki, at <http://wiki.oasis-open.org/office/List_of_Proposals>.  I can't guarantee its completeness and I don't know if the status of proposals has been maintained as we have jumped into reviewing and polishing the ODF 1.2 drafts.

At the end of 2008, we conducted a triage exercise to find the 5 or so proposals that people felt were most critical to include in ODF 1.2, and we processed those.  This is the announcement of the selection:
 <http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/200812/msg00156.html>.  
We had a reduced list of candidates, and we then narrowed down to the top picks.  There were many proposals that were not on the reduced list, sometimes by agreeing that some recent proposals would be offered for consideration in ODF-next rather than developed in detail for ODF 1.2.

Please note that proposals, usually for features, sometimes for improvements, are different than defect reports.  Defect reports are appropriate at any time, and the public comment list is how we receive those (as well as suggestions) from the public, such as yourself.  Internal defect reports and all contributions from ODF TC members (who are here as individuals and vote individually, not as companies, by the way) are done on the TC mailing list and their discussion are found on the ODF TC mailing list archive.  The archive of that list is available on-line:
<http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/office/>.  

OTHER FEEDBACK, PUBLIC COMMENTS, AND DEFECT/ISSUE HANDLING

In going through the public comments received so far, the ODF TC is establishing an issue-processing system that will provide more visibility and manageability on the identification and resolution of issues in the specifications, with focus on ODF 1.2 but also with consideration of reported defects in previous versions.  I am not sure whether the issue system is visible to the public.  Try <http://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/OFFICE>.  If you are able to access the Issue Tracker, please note that this is in an extremely preliminary state as we configure and populate it for processing of the actual issues.  As part of extracting a mailing list into the issue tracker, a large number of comments that do not reflect issues are included.  The ODF TC will be cleaning that up as we prepare for the extensive public reviews of ODF 1.2 drafts.



-----Original Message-----
From: Cody, John (OFT) [mailto:John.Cody@oft.state.ny.us]
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2009 07:12
To: opendocument-users@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [opendocument-users] Improvement submissions to the ODF-TC?

What is the easiest way for a user to determine the content of proposals that have been submitted for consideration to the ODF-TC?  For example, if an implementer touts having made multiple proposals to improve ODF, but then also makes implementation choices in which it criticizes deficiencies in ODF, how does a user like me determine if the proposals that were submitted were aimed at addressing those deficiencies, or not?

I prefer online responses, please.  Thank you, John


===============================================

John C. Cody, Associate Counsel
Office of the NYS Chief Information Officer/NYS Office for Technology http://www.oft.state.ny.us [The statements expressed herein are my own and do not necessarily reflect the policies, practices or opinions of my employer or anyone else.  Nothing herein constitutes legal advice - if you need legal advice, please consult your own attorney.]




  ________________________________
This e-mail, including any attachments, may be confidential, privileged or otherwise legally protected. It is intended only for the addressee. If you received this e-mail in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to you, do not disseminate, copy or otherwise use this e-mail or its attachments. Please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail and delete the e-mail from your system.


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opendocument-users-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org
For additional commands, e-mail:
opendocument-users-help@lists.oasis-open.org


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opendocument-users-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org
For additional commands, e-mail: opendocument-users-help@lists.oasis-open.org