OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC

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  • 1.  RDF support?

    Posted 10-11-2015 01:03
    Greetings! Is RDF support on the roadmap for any of the implementers of ODF? Despite my misgivings about RDF, it would clearly be superior to current metadata support in office software in general. Not that I think we need to make changes but if we could encourage such support sooner rather than later, it could make a selling point for ODF. The only metadata that could rival RDF support dodges vendor lock-in in favor of consultant/contractor lock-in. ;-) I once maintained a network where the disk necessary to see the internal server settings was found to be blank. Yes. I was quite annoyed because there were monitoring/maintenance tasks that could not be performed without that disk. You may assume the contractor who installed the system long before I arrived had that disk. You may assume from that story that I despise consultant/contractor lock-in in all its various forms. Hope everyone is having a great day! Patrick -- Patrick Durusau patrick@durusau.net Technical Advisory Board, OASIS (TAB) OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300 Co-Editor 13250-5 (Topic Maps) Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net Homepage: http://www.durusau.net Twitter: patrickDurusau


  • 2.  Re: [office] RDF support?

    Posted 10-12-2015 13:33
    On Saturday 10 October 2015 21:03:17 Patrick Durusau wrote: > Greetings! > > Is RDF support on the roadmap for any of the implementers of ODF? > > Despite my misgivings about RDF, it would clearly be superior to current > metadata support in office software in general. > > Not that I think we need to make changes but if we could encourage such > support sooner rather than later, it could make a selling point for ODF. > > The only metadata that could rival RDF support dodges vendor lock-in in > favor of consultant/contractor lock-in. ;-) > > I once maintained a network where the disk necessary to see the internal > server settings was found to be blank. Yes. I was quite annoyed because > there were monitoring/maintenance tasks that could not be performed > without that disk. You may assume the contractor who installed the > system long before I arrived had that disk. > > You may assume from that story that I despise consultant/contractor > lock-in in all its various forms. Calligra has RDF support and even a built-in sparql engine. It is not used widely I think. LibreOffice has support for loading and saving. I do not know if there is an API for accessing and changing the metadata. Cheers, Jos


  • 3.  Re: [office] RDF support?

    Posted 10-12-2015 20:26
    On 12.10.2015 15:32, Jos van den Oever wrote: > On Saturday 10 October 2015 21:03:17 Patrick Durusau wrote: >> Greetings! >> >> Is RDF support on the roadmap for any of the implementers of ODF? >> >> Despite my misgivings about RDF, it would clearly be superior to current >> metadata support in office software in general. >> >> Not that I think we need to make changes but if we could encourage such >> support sooner rather than later, it could make a selling point for ODF. >> > > Calligra has RDF support and even a built-in sparql engine. It is not used > widely I think. > LibreOffice has support for loading and saving. I do not know if there is an API > for accessing and changing the metadata. yes there is: https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/OfficeDev/RDF_metadata in summary we have in Writer xml:id support on the most important elements, support for text:meta and text:meta-field elements, plus a generic RDF API for extensions/macros with an in-memory RDF store and ODF import/export for all that. the most important missing feature is copy/paste: when some content element is copied, the copy/paste of the RDF metadata referencing that element via its xml:id is left completely unspecified by ODF, which is unlikely to yield similar results in different implementations. (the problem is that the RDF graphs have arbitrary connections and have no "natural hierarchy" (they are not trees), and of course by the very nature of the feature ODF implementations cannot assume particular semantics of the RDF properties that happen to be used in some file.) there is also no UI for RDF metadata, but that is sort of intentional: the feature is mostly intended to be used by extensions. unfortunately currently nobody is working on it. -- Michael Stahl Software Engineer Platform Engineering - Desktop Team Red Hat Better technology. Faster innovation. Powered by community collaboration. See how it works at redhat.com Red Hat GmbH, http://www.de.redhat.com/ Sitz: Grasbrunn, Handelsregister: Amtsgericht München, HRB 153243 Geschäftsführer: Charles Cachera, Michael Cunningham, Michael O'Neill, Charles Peters


  • 4.  Re: [office] RDF support?

    Posted 10-13-2015 18:13
    Michael, Thanks! Sorry to hear no one is working on fuller support for RDF in LibreOffice. Considering the difficulty, expense and uncertainty of creating metadata post-authoring, I would think that enabling users to select an RDF "library" that automatically annotates their authored content with RDF metadata that can be validated by the author would be a "killer" feature. Since I tend to write mostly about metadata, topic maps, etc., the RDF library I would use would be quite different from someone who was writing about sports. There would remain the issue of building the RDF libraries, but I suspect that would be a market driven activity. Think of adding RDF metadata by the author as addressing the information entropy problem, which is larger ignored with current data mining and big data techniques. Oh, information entropy problem: You can't get more information out of a document than was put into it. Yes, people try to impute information to terms (parts of speech, etc.) but that's post-authoring. For semantics you are much better off asking the author. Or as I said to Svante once upon a time, having ontology-check much as we have spell-check now. Hope you are having a great day! Patrick On 10/12/2015 04:25 PM, Michael Stahl wrote: On 12.10.2015 15:32, Jos van den Oever wrote: On Saturday 10 October 2015 21:03:17 Patrick Durusau wrote: Greetings! Is RDF support on the roadmap for any of the implementers of ODF? Despite my misgivings about RDF, it would clearly be superior to current metadata support in office software in general. Not that I think we need to make changes but if we could encourage such support sooner rather than later, it could make a selling point for ODF. Calligra has RDF support and even a built-in sparql engine. It is not used widely I think. LibreOffice has support for loading and saving. I do not know if there is an API for accessing and changing the metadata. yes there is: https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/OfficeDev/RDF_metadata in summary we have in Writer xml:id support on the most important elements, support for text:meta and text:meta-field elements, plus a generic RDF API for extensions/macros with an in-memory RDF store and ODF import/export for all that. the most important missing feature is copy/paste: when some content element is copied, the copy/paste of the RDF metadata referencing that element via its xml:id is left completely unspecified by ODF, which is unlikely to yield similar results in different implementations. (the problem is that the RDF graphs have arbitrary connections and have no "natural hierarchy" (they are not trees), and of course by the very nature of the feature ODF implementations cannot assume particular semantics of the RDF properties that happen to be used in some file.) there is also no UI for RDF metadata, but that is sort of intentional: the feature is mostly intended to be used by extensions. unfortunately currently nobody is working on it. -- Patrick Durusau patrick@durusau.net Technical Advisory Board, OASIS (TAB) OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300 Co-Editor 13250-5 (Topic Maps) Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net Homepage: http://www.durusau.net Twitter: patrickDurusau