From owner-incits-v1@incits-v1.org Wed Oct 24 05:36:31 2007 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 08:34:02 -0400 From: "Mason, James David (MXM)" Subject: RE: INCITS-V1: AFNOR proposal for revisable office document formats In-reply-to: <471EE230.8090205@durusau.net> Sender: owner-incits-v1@incits-v1.org To: incits-v1@incits-v1.org Reply-to: incits-v1@incits-v1.org X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by midtown.nycx.com id l9OCY4Zr021771 Content-class: urn:content-classes:message Thread-topic: INCITS-V1: AFNOR proposal for revisable office document formats Thread-index: AcgWBTr8j4Xzr1xdSa2Rddss6CUHfgAMog0w X-PMX-Version: 5.2.0.264296 X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 24 Oct 2007 12:34:03.0416 (UTC) FILETIME=[29236980:01C8163A] This is what I meant when I said this sounds like a typical ISO negotiated solution. The details may be hard to work out, but the idea of finding the core functionalities and aligning those first seems reasonable. And there are benefits to a negotiated solution: Working out the SGML representation of ODA gave us some useful tools, long after the demise of ODA itself. The first of these was the concept of SGML Architectural Forms, which while not widely understood, enabled the development of HyTime, and that led to the development of Topic Maps, on which SC34 is still working. Breaking OOXML into core and extensions also makes sense, and not just in terms of the AFNOR proposal. Many of the negative comments from the original review period dealt with the parts of OOXML that are tied to representing the capabilities/quirks of individual products, not with the basic functions needed to represent office documents. Moving those to an extensions part would remove the objections to the functions in the core. Don't take this to mean that I favor just expelling these things to outer darkness and standardizing just the core. I think that identifying the extensions actually should increase their probability for standardization. My own preference, however, would go beyond the AFNOR proposal, in that I would separate normative content from examples and instructional material: I'd prefer a three-part proposal. That is to say, I'd like (1) Core functionality (to be harmonized with ODF), (2) Extensions for support of the existing corpus of documents, and (3) Technical Report: Developers' Guide to OOXML. Moving the examples to a TR has precedents in ISO and indeed in SC34. The original SGML (ISO 8879) had examples -- in nonnormative appendices, to be sure, not the body of the standard. Rather than expand the appendices, extended examples were moved to a series of technical reports, ISO TR 9573. The current development of Topic Maps is on a similar path, in that there will be both ISO 13250 parts and ISO TR 13250 parts. And, as Patrick has been investigating on the side, moving the examples would make for a much more compact standard. Jim Mason -----Original Message----- From: owner-incits-v1@incits-v1.org [mailto:owner-incits-v1@incits-v1.org] On Behalf Of Patrick Durusau Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 2:12 AM To: incits-v1@incits-v1.org Subject: Re: INCITS-V1: AFNOR proposal for revisable office document formats Jon, Well, I don't think anyone would deny that there is a common core (yet unspecified) of document structures that both ISO/IEC 26300 and DIS 29500 both handle. Nor do I think anyone would deny that both have unique structures that are not shared by the other. The better (in my opinion) thinking of all concerned has been that in the long run that a convergence in terms of a fixed mapping if not some closer correspondence will be the natural evolution in this context. I suspect that organizational politics will play a larger role in such an effort rather than the actual technical questions since it really isn't simply an ISO question but an ISO/OASIS/Ecma plus all the players questions. Still, I think greater collaboration between standards bodies (as well as among standards participants) is a very good thing and so I would like to understand the details of how such a proposal could be brought to fruition. Hope you are having a great day! Patrick jon.bosak@sun.com wrote: > AFNOR, the French National Body, has made an interesting proposal for > the progress of both OOXML and ODF: > > http://www.infotechfrance.com/cgi-local/affichage_signets.pl?UNI_ID=8& > RUB_ID=53&SIG_ID=4304&actu=1 > > This plan strikes me as quite sensible. What do other members of > V1 think? > > Jon > > > -- Patrick Durusau patrick@durusau.net Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34 Acting Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps) Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps) Co-Editor, OpenDocument Format (OASIS, ISO/IEC 26300)