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I wanted to talk about some of the comments I wish we could have dealt with but we didn't have enough time. We'll need to follow up with the national body for more information, and deal with it in maintenance. Here's the full list if you are interested (https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/group_public/download.php/18912/iso-comment-responses.odt), but I thought I'd highlight a few:

UK Comment #3 :

The text frequently uses terms borrowed from other standards but with narrower or in other ways altered meanings.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

UK Comment #9:

The ODF schema contains a number of features whose use appears to relate to specific implementation choices or be constrained by a specific implementation restrictions. Examples include features that are application-specific or which would only be available on specific operating platforms (such as DDE, OLE).

Response:

… while the OpenDocument schema supports the use of DDE, it does not require its support since the content of any such element is represented in the resulting instance.

Similarly, the OpenDocument schema does not require support for OLE objects, but does support their inclusion in an OpenDocument document, much as it supports the inclusion of any other binary object (not in XML).

…

Merely providing support for binary objects does not bind any implementor to support any particular binary objects or protocols for their use.

UK Comment #10:

Some properties whose values are measurements constrain the choice of units of measurement in ways that are implementation-dependent. While it is recognised that not all implementations will be able to support all choices of units of measurement, the format should be flexible enough to allow new implementations that do not impose the same constraints.

Response:

The TC intends to clarify which units of measurements should or may be supported by implementations in a future OpenDocument specification.

UK Comment #11:

Some properties whose values are measurements constrain the choice of units of measurement in ways that are implementation-dependent. While it is recognised that not all implementations will be able to support all choices of units of measurement, the format should be flexible enough to allow new implementations that do not impose the same constraints.

Response:

The TC intends to define all constrains on string values for measurements by patterns in a future OpenDocument specification.

UK Comment #11:

Some properties whose values are measurements constrain the choice of units of measurement in ways that are implementation-dependent. While it is recognised that not all implementations will be able to support all choices of units of measurement, the format should be flexible enough to allow new implementations that do not impose the same constraints.

Response:

The TC intends to define all constrains on string values for measurements by patterns in a future OpenDocument specification.

UK Comment #12:

Spatial frames of reference for page layout and object rotation are not clearly defined.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

UK Comment #13:

The rationale for mixing functionalities from different sources/namespaces (e.g. XSL-FO, SVG and CSS2) is not properly explained in each case.

Response:

The format specifies the different namespaces and how they are used. It is not an expository document making a case for one solution over another. As a standard it is stating the rule, not arguing for it.

Japan Comment #3:

Add the features of accessibility, if possible.

Response:

The TC acknowledges the comment by the Japanese National Body on accessibility issues. The OpenDocument TC's Accessibility Subcommittee has reviewed the OpenDocument v1.0 specification, has identified 9 accessibility issues in OpenDocument v1.0, and proposes candidate solutions to them. With these changes, we believe that OpenDocument will meet or exceed the accessibility support provided in all other office file formats as well as that specified in the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

Due to structures on the revision process in OASIS and time constraints we were unable to add these features to the current version of OpenDocument submitted to ISO, but they shall be added to the next revision of OpenDocument. We appreciate the Japanese National Body correcting our oversight in this area.

China Comment #4:

ODF in W3C schema should be provided in addition to RelaxNG specification.

Response:

The OpenDocument schema is specified in Relax-NG, which is an ISO standard. The purpose of the schema is the validation of OpenDocument instances. Providing a W3C XSD schema would be possible, but since not all concepts that exist in Relax-NG also exist in W3C XSD and vice versa, the W3C XSD schema would not accept exactly the same set of documents as the Relax-NG schema. It therefore could not be used for validation purposes. Providing a W3C XSD schema for this reason seems not be reasonable.

China Comment #5:

The document structure should be described by means of hierarchical elements for better extensibility, whereas the current version uses too many attributes.

Response:

There are many factors that have influenced whether information is represented as an attribute or an element in OpenDocument. One major factor was whether the information is represented as element or as attribute in the standards OpenDocument is based on.

Because there are no major differences how elements and attributes are specified in Relax-NG, the OpenDocument TC is not aware of any advantages regarding extensibility that the use of elements has over the use of attributes.

China Comment #9:

Text table is hard to transform into other formats due to its faulty design.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 10:

Representation of graphics and chart is imperfect, e.g., the incompact chart description in spreadsheet.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 11

Field representation is inexplicit and incomplete.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 12

Some values adopted are not described clearly in the standard document, e.g., some string and enumerate values.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 13

International markup. i.e., multilingual and localized tags should be supported.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 14

Function related to Chinese processing should be enhanced, e.g., to support binding lines and diagonally divided table cells.

Response:

OpenDocument supports diagonal border lines. They are described in section 15.11.8

The information provided in the comment regarding binding lines is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2008
    What's this? You did not have enough time to answer the comments to ODF ??

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    Oh come on Brian, this post is beyond pathetic. What about the circa 900 (nine hundred!) comments that were not even discussed at the OOXML BRM before being waved through by default? Wouldn't you (and the proposed OOXML standard) be better off by spending your time discussing those instead of producing snide commentary about 38 comments on the ODF ISO standard? To make matters worse, it seems that there are still many dozens more issues with OOXML that weren't even addressed by the BRM. If you didn't have enough time to deal with ODF-related comments, how do you think the rest of the world feels about having much less time to review and discuss the supposed OOXML specification?

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    Well, I don't even know that to say after reading this. I'm confused. Perhaps the best thing I can do is to give a free tip to all readers: http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2008/03/how_many_defects_remain_answer.html#c3002822 There, the ISO SQL Editor shares some of his experiences gained from the hard work during past the 20 YEARS spent with SQL standard.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    This post serves to illustrate that ODF did get a free pass when it came to the quality of the standard. There is a double-standard applied to ODF and OOXML.  This double-standard is justified on variations of "We are good, MS is evil". Had Microsoft been the submitter of ODF, we would see the commissars up in arms about these unanswered issues. But what we have today is OOXML, a standard that started pretty with a very thorough specification, that was improved through the ISO process.   And a raging mob lead by a mix of half-truths, financial interests trying to use every device to stop a standard because it was created by Microsoft. On the other hand, ODF, now an ISO standard is incomplete, with plenty of open issues and inconsistencies, yet, heralded as the pinnacle of openness. Orwellian in so many ways.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2008
    Ah, what a pleasure it is to see how people are working together to get things right: http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2008/03/doug-mahugh-rea.html

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    Guys, if you are setting up schemes it'd nice to have some facts alongside your claims. Now that you mentioned Malaysia, please let me give you an example of hard evidence: a phony business card made by a Microsoft employee! http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/open-malaysia-blog-the-elephant-in-the-room-with-a-calling-card.?opendocument&comments Maybe others are doing the same, I don't know, but if you claim something like that, please provide even some evidence. Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    @nksingh - Anyone tearing down Oracle? Sun? HP?, Intel? SAP? Adobe? Be honest - there are few people "tearing down anything that is not OSS." A valid reason to oppose a standard is when the ratification of that standard may give equal legal footing to a company that has a clear history, up to the present day, of ignoring and subverting standards to further entrench its monopoly position. Had Microsoft so wished, it could have published MSO-XML and given everyone the exact benefit MS has claimed for its rush job on ECMA and ISO. A few years wait would then ferret out the trouble spots, just as it has in most other areas of standardization. Besides, even Brian Jones enjoys talking about ODF. There is hardly any mention of MSO-XML aka OOXML, beyond pleading for yes votes.

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    Rules are changing delay around the world, this time in Poland: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080322203811784 Strange things are happening.

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
    Brian, Let's not forget that Yoon Kit - a Malaysian - wrote the comments submitted to ISO by Kenya! It looks very inappropriate, and Yoon Kit should provide an explanation.

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
    Yoon Kit has already explained the Kenya issue, see http://notes2self.net/archive/2007/06/22/quot-there-is-no-reason-to-be-browbeaten-into-thinking-that-there-should-only-be-one-document-format-quot.aspx Now, whether you believe his explanation is up to you.

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
    Rob, No - I didn't have anything to do with this blog post ... but it's nice to see Brian having learned from "the master". :o)

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
    @Dave S. People don't bash Sun and Adobe?  I see plenty of bashing of both of those companies, Sun in particular.  In Sun's case, it is mostly about their daring to release their open source software software in some license other than the blessed GPL.   But yes, most people bash Microsoft to be honest.  Where's the fun in bashing the bit players?  Brian's blog may not be the most appropriate place to discuss this, but I strongly disagree with your statement that Microsoft actively or intentionally subverts standards.  Many times, Microsoft's products predate the official standards and the standards are later formed by the players that lost out in the marketplace.  This is the way I view the W3C committees, for instance.  Other times, like with Kerberos, Microsoft uses perfectly legitimate vendor extension fields and layers on higher-level protocols above the base standards to make a compelling product.  I don't see how differentiating yourself through more complete products and better capabilities is anticompetitive or subversive.

  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 24, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2008
    OOXML support only one platform and CPU arch now! ODF support many platform anad many CPU arch (Sparc, PowerPC, x86, x86_64 ....) All big internet search engine is power to POSIX OS, and for posix OS is only limited support. No non windows desktop is impossible open OOXML without comandline beta convert program. M$ is noncredit corporation for any standard, all standards crumple in history.

  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2008
    Izak, Your eloquence has won me over.

  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2008
    I try to keep the discussion on this blog primarily focused on the area I care most about, the technology

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2008
    @Anon - You insult Kenyans by suggesting they lack the capacity to decide what is best for them. @Izak - What you mean is clear.