From Doug.Mahugh@microsoft.com Thu May 24 08:21:00 2007 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 24 May 2007 08:20:29 -0700 From: Doug Mahugh Subject: RE: Doug's disagreement In-reply-to: <465582A8.1000607@durusau.net> To: "patrick@durusau.net" , Dave Welsh , Frank Farance , Jerry Smith , Jon Bosak , "Levine, Leonard F CIV DISA GES-E" , Norm Walsh , "Lynne A. Price" , Rex Jaeschke , Richard Barber , Robert Weir , Steve Carton , Tim Schoechle , "Mason, James David (MXM)" , Kevin Trainor , Eduardo Gutentag Content-language: en-US Accept-Language: en-US Thread-topic: Doug's disagreement Thread-index: Aced/bj5cZb2kyubSIy+fGCOxEUmFwAGSL7w acceptlanguage: en-US X-PMX-Version: 5.2.0.264296 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Hi Patrick, I agree that representing a pre-existing binary format is part of the scope of DIS 29500. But you've gone far beyond the question of whether that's part of the scope -- you've now moved into recommending that a variety of things be removed because they're not encompassed by that statement. So the nature of the conclusions you're reaching makes it clear that your position is that representation of a pre-existing binary format is the sole purpose of DIS 29500. I can't see any other way to interpret a statement like this one, for example: "Such capabilities were not present in the pre-existing binary format for which DIS 29500 specifies an XML representation and as such is clearly out of scope for DIS 29500." (OPC-Durusau-15.pdf) My reason for disagreeing with that limited definition of the scope of DIS 29500 was stated in my first email on this topic last week: "I teach Open XML workshops for developers, and the capability to embed custom schemas into documents is something many developers find useful and exciting." After leading workshops on this topic for about 250 developers over the last couple of months, they tell me that this capability is the most useful and important new capability that DIS 29500 offers them. Not "one of many on the list," but the single most useful thing. Compatibility with the binary formats, on the other hand, is of interest to very few developers -- only those building word-processing applications, in my experience, which is an extremely small subset of developers in general. I'm just listening to what actual implementers of the spec have to say, and not offering any theories of my own here. Defining the scope of DIS 29500 in a way that makes the thing most developers find most useful "outside scope" feels forced to me. - Doug -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Durusau [mailto:patrick@durusau.net] Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 5:19 AM To: Dave Welsh; Doug Mahugh; Frank Farance; Jerry Smith; Jon Bosak; Levine, Leonard F CIV DISA GES-E; Norm Walsh; Lynne A. Price; Rex Jaeschke; Richard Barber; Robert Weir; Steve Carton; Tim Schoechle; Mason, James David (MXM); Kevin Trainor; Eduardo Gutentag Subject: Doug's disagreement Greetings! I am aware that Doug disagrees with my assessment that DIS 29500 is concerned with representing a pre-existing binary format in XML. That much I got. What I don't know is why? Since sometimes my questions get lost in prose, let me be real short and explicit: 1. Yes, DIS 29500 has a number of useful and possilbly separate parts of a single standard, like custom schemas. 2. OK, so is a part of DIS 29500 about representing a pre-existing binary format in XML? 3. If so, what parts? 4. If no part of DIS 29500 is about representing a pre-existing binary format in XML, please state what portions of the documents as filed by Ecma (we are supposed to be reviewing the proposal as submitted and written) leads to that conclusion (by part and section). I am trying to be careful to ground my questions and comments on the ISO/JTC 1 Directives and the submission *as written.* I understand the process to be one of evaluating the proposal that was submitted. Not as we might have submitted it, which I suspect would be a very different thing. I hope everyone is having a great day! Patrick -- Patrick Durusau Patrick@Durusau.net Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model Member, Text Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005 Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!