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Reuse of existing standards

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In looking through some of the work Ecma has done to identify in a clear way how existing standards are leveraged, I found the blog post from Jesper Lund Stocholm about the use of SVG within ODF to be very interesting. This is an example of how difficult it can be to get cross-application interoperability when you have a specification that is vague. I think this is an obvious area where things could be improved (both in terms of the spec, as well as the implementations who try to follow the spec). https://www.idippedut.dk/post/2008/01/Embrace-and-extend---SVG-revisited.aspx

For those of you interested in the technical details, it is a great read. Also some good discussion down in the comments:

January 20. 2008 20:59

In the ODF schema, there are 9 elements in the SVG-compatible
namespace. They are as follows:

svg:desc,
svg:font-face-src,
svg:font-face-uri,
svg:font-face-format,
svg:font-face-name,
svg:definition-src,
svg:linearGradient,
svg:radialGradient, and
svg:stop.

Where are the basic primitives of SVG such as rect, circle, ellipse, line, polyline, and polygon? They do not exist in
the SVG-compatible namespace. Something similar to them
appear in the draw namespace, which is specific to ODF.

Anon

January 21. 2008 03:08

Anon, thanks for your reply,

Where are the basic primitives of SVG such as rect, circle, ellipse, line, polyline, and polygon? They do not exist in
the SVG-compatible namespace.

Yes - well that really emphasizes my point. ODF both augments and limits SVG and vector graphics are, at the end of the day, not handled by SVG but by ODF Draw.

jlundstocholm

-Brian

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2008
    PingBack from http://msdnrss.thecoderblogs.com/2008/01/22/reuse-of-existing-standards/

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2008
    why don't you begin to reuse standards in your format ( OOXML ), throwing the VML deprecated beast and replacing Drawing ML with SVG, insted of criticize other formats that do their best to reuse standards? please, grow up   carlos

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2008
    Carlos,

  • SVG's vector graphics are a lot inferior in terms of capabilities to DrawingML's.  That of course is why Microsoft did not use SVG.
  • Read the comments above, which showed that ODF did not "do their best to reuse standards".  Instead, they used an ad-hoc partially adopt / partially reject SVG!  In fact, they rejected the core of SVG (its vector graphics), and created something new instead.  (Which is what Microsoft did too -- see my first point.)
  • There is every indication in the air that when the ECMA's proposals for OOXML are published, it will show a great re-use of existing standards.  Just be patient a few days or weeks.

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2008
    Carlos, It is an important point for Brian to raise because people have been accusing OOXML of not using existing standards and pointing out that ODF is smaller because "it reuses existing standards" which as it turns out it does not. It is "inspired" by other standards. Which in the light of the ongoing attacks on OOXML , specially when compared to ODF have less weight.

  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    January 22, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
    marc, You're rambling is getting really old man. You are enjoying it, ah? A key to engineering is building something people can actually use. It makes the design much more difficult as you have to factor in all the conditions, and it's not always pretty, but in the end it's the only way to move people forward. You can continue your rants if you want, but look around. There are more implementations of Open XML than of ODF. The implementations of Open XML are also of higher quality. So you can claim that there are flaws in Open XML, but the marketplace says something else. I wish you would try putting the same focus on the ODF spec (or any standard for that matter), and see that there will always be designs you disagree with. The key is that the standard is interoperable, and anyone can use it if they want to. -Brian

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
    Jones said "The implementations of Open XML are also of higher quality." There goes another ludicrous comment. Jones said "I wish you would try putting the same focus on the ODF spec" At the risk of surprising you, it's you and your shills that keep coming up with ODF whenever you are out of argument. This blog is about OOXML, it's pretty clear. There is no need to disparage ODF just to cover OOXML flaws. And yes, this is the worst spec ever.

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
    S, Could you provide a little information about yourself? What's your name? What do you do for a living? Do you build software?

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
    S. is a troll. An illiterate version of marc. This is really all we need to know about him.

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
    marc, I would be hesitate to praise the C++ or PDF standards. It took about 25 years for C++ to become a standard and for interoperability its implementations to appear. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B#Problems_and_controversies PDF is likewise a can of worms. Granted, parts of the original OOXML proposal were taken straight from the Microsoft parts bin (e.g., formula documentation.) But PDF is no better! It's simply a subset of PostScript--a proprietary, legacy programming language originating in 1970s laser printers. As such, it's a highly complex standard. The official reference weighs in at 1310 pages.* No wonder nobody aside from Abode supports it in its entirety! (*This isn't that much briefer than OOXML, when you consider the latter's relaxed spacing and the fact that it is actually three standards in one--word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation.)

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
    Reading Reed. my colleague Reed Shaffner has started blogging. This should be fun. Reed is the driving

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
    Reading Reed. my colleague Reed Shaffner has started blogging. This should be fun. Reed is the driving

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2008
    @Brian Jones Sure I write software, that's why I only post a couple of times a day. What difference does it make to you? If I didn't, would you point me to one of those XML for dummies tutorials that you guys write? Come on, I can't think you would sink that low. Let me say it differently. I can sympathize with writing software that is used by a number of million individuals out there, and this is probably why something in you does it (I am talking about the part in you that is not completely rotten yet). But the more responsible it needs to be. When you write software that impacts so many people, you don't rush software out the door (Office 2007) and you don't rush and fast-track bogus specs whose content does not even match the goal and scope. Go back to the drawing board with it, make it something worthy. Perhaps then you'll be taken seriously.

  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2008
    >But PDF is no better! are you really saying that this http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_reference.pdf has the same level of quality of this http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/Office%20Open%20XML%20Part%204%20(PDF).zip http://www.itn.liu.se/~stegu/OOXML/DIS29500-2008-002.pdf ? by the way... i read PDFs with 100% fidelity in more than four different open source programs in more than 4 different Linux distributions ( now writing this in Linux Mint, while i skim a 2000 page PDF document with "evince" a PDF viewer  ). This is what you get, when you design a format thinking in implementability ( Adobe publish detailed PDF specification since 2000 , and when i say "publish" i'm not talking about complicated authentication processes with quid-pro-quo mailing , questions, fax sending, etc like Microsoft binary formats documentation supposed "availability" ). I will say it again: Microsoft, welcome to the open world. It will be difficult for you at the beginning ( it is an unknown territory for you ) ,but keep trying.

  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2008
    >Adobe publish detailed PDF specification since 2000 >Microsoft, welcome to the open world. It will be difficult for you at the beginning Yeah, it really was difficult for Microsoft in the beginning: Like if they just implement PDF and Adobe forces them to remove that from Office! What an open format... And BTW: To DISPLAY PDF with 100% fidelity (Do you also mean 100% fidelity for 3D-cad modells, forms and javascript???) one just has to draw what's in the document. Not that hard. But to RENDER Word-documents needs a complete layout engine! So it is unfair to ask for any open office standard to give one a direct route to reimplement the office appliacation! I think it is enough that MS documents the format, they don't have to add 20000 pages with algorithms how to layout documents and how to draw them...

  • Anonymous
    January 25, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    January 26, 2008
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  • Anonymous
    January 26, 2008
    "Do you also mean 100% fidelity for 3D-cad modells, forms and javascript???" "Displaying PDF is one thing, but the PDF specification goes far beyond simple layout." do you want javascript PDF documentation? look here: http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acrobat/sdk/AcroJS.pdf ( 680 pages of useful information, i mean you won't find there 200 pages of repeated tables defining on/off attributes, like OOXML "documentation" ) 3d documentation? look here http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_reference.pdf">http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/pdf_reference.pdf  ( "Multimedia" section ) http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat3d/ http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/ http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/ECMA-363%203rd%20edition.pdf PDF forms and javascript implementation? do you know Scribus? http://docs.scribus.net/index.php?lang=en&page=javascriptpdf http://www.linux.com/articles/44046  --marc