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Subject: Backwards compatibility?
Hello,
The recent discussion about style name uniqueness raises a more general
question: How much do we care about backwards compatibility? Are we
willing to change the format in a way that makes some existing files
invalid? Or do we want to guarantee that once a file is valid it will
always be valid?
Robert Weir wrote a poposal on the OD-users list which I copy below.
<robert>
One way of looking it is like this:
1) Versions of ODF that are part of the ODF 1.0 "family" must remain
compatible with each other. This means any document valid/conformant
with one revision of the specification is also valid/conformant with the
others. This would limit our changes to errata and new features which
can be added in a backwards-compatible way. Format revisions of the
same "family" would share the same value of the office:version attribute.
2) At certain points in the evolution of ODF, we may wish to make larger
changes, a big leap forward. This would result in us issuing a major
specification update, e.g., ODF 2.0, and incrementing the office:version
attribute. Backwards compatibility would not be guaranteed.
So, at some stages the goal is simply to make a "good enough" fix, for
now, to address an issue without breaking compatibility. And then at
periodic points, perhaps every two years or so, we can make more
substantial changes.
It is a tricky balancing act and there is more than one way of looking
at this.
</robert>
Best,
Daniel.
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