RE: [opendocument-users] simple OO.org document goes awry in MSOffice 2007 w/SP2 - what went wrong?

["Cody, John (OFT)" <John.Cody@cio.ny.gov>]

Paul:

"Did you set OOWriter to save as ODF 1.1?"

        Yes, I did that when I started the document, hoping for good interoperability.

"I'd suggest reporting the experience to the ODF TC along with a request that they indentify [sic] the relevant portions of the ODF 1.1 and IS 26300 specifications that are ambiguous..."

        Whoa!  Huge conclusory leap, there.  Who said anything is ambiguous in the spec?  Maybe there are other reasons for the failure         here.

"I encourage you to make a regular practice of reporting such interoperability failures to the ODF TC..."

        Is there an ODF TC for Interoperability Failures?  The last thing I want to do is bother the TC with comments not related to their      activities, and not demonstrably an ODF problem.

"... using OOo as a de facto reference implementation is problematic because it is a moving target not under the control of the ODF TC."

        I don't see the problem.  It's open source, so in a sense it is under their and everybody's control.  And reference implementations     are typically not under standards bodies' control, are they?

Thanks for the thoughts, Paul, but only the version 1.1. comment is on point.  JC


===============================================
John C. Cody, Associate Counsel
Office of the NYS Chief Information Officer/NYS Office for Technology
http://www.cio.ny.gov
[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: marbux [mailto:marbux@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2009 4:13 PM
To: Cody, John (OFT)
Cc: opendocument-users@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [opendocument-users] simple OO.org document goes awry in MS Office 2007 w/SP2 - what went wrong?

On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Cody, John (OFT) <John.Cody@cio.ny.gov> wrote:

>
> What went wrong?  Is there anything I should be doing in particular when I draft documents in OO.org 3.1 that will help the document be interpreted better by MS Office 2007 SP2?

Hi, John,

Did you set OOWriter to save as ODF 1.1?  By default, OOo 3.x writes to what is called ODF 1.2, although there is no ODF 1.2 yet. The setting is at Tools > Options > Load/Save > General. Note, however, the warning on that dialog page that not using ODF 1.2 may cause data loss when saving.

If you experienced that after setting the save format to ODF 1.1, I'd suggest reporting the experience to the ODF TC along with a request that they indentify the relevant portions of the ODF 1.1 and IS 26300 specifications that are ambiguous and to repair those defects in the specs. If you experienced that with the save format set to ODF 1.2, you might report it as pointing to a potential incompatibility between the ODF 1.1 and 1.2 specs

The proper list for such reports is the office-comment list, <office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org>>. Subscription instructions are here. <http://www.oasis-open.org/maillists/guidelines.php#subscribing>.

I encourage you to make a regular practice of reporting such interoperability failures to the ODF TC along with similar requests.
ODF has no reference implementation and using OOo as a de facto reference implementation is problematic because it is a moving target not under the control of the ODF TC. So interop bug reports should go to the ODF TC so that the ambiguities in the specification can be repaired, unless you are certain that the interop failure results from non-conformance to the specification(s).

Best regards,

Paul E. Merrell, J.D. .

--
Universal Interoperability Council
<http:www.universal-interop-council.org>


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