Patrick,
It's sure that XML topic is closely related to this TC. "out of our
goal" means out of the topic of forming an interoperability
Subcommittee. "How about an interoperability Subcommittee?" is the
subject of these mails.
If SVG or XSL-FO could work, there was no need of PDF, even XPS. You are
expert of document format, but it seems you know little about
layout-based document, which I have been studying for 17 years.
I tried to use the example of Java to explain what "balance" means. Sun
kept some IPR of Java ten years ago, give up some of them today, it is
the "balance". Yes, Sun want to create a market by Java, but I don't
think this is the reason that you have very little sympathy for Sun. I
respect Sun, J2EE is more popular than .NET, while Windows, IE, MS
Office becomes the owner of the world.
I was told "share everything", "free for everything" ever since I was
born. I am a Chinese, this is the Communist Party's education. This kind
of education still exists in North Korea, and now in OASIS. We treat IPR
in extremeness attitude, thus a commercial topic becomes a politics
topic. I don't think it is a good manner.
Before you decide to refuse any kind of RAND, please consider: Is it
better if the world is under the control of .NET?
-Alex
Original Message-----
From: Patrick Durusau [mailto:patrick@durusau.net]
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 8:00 PM
To: Alex Wang
Cc: office@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [office] How about an interoperability Subcommittee?
Alex,
Alex Wang wrote:
>Dear Patrick,
>
>There exist many kinds of point of view of XML. For me, XML is a
>mealanguage that has ability to describe anything. It is similiar as
>alphabet, you can compose English, or French, or Chinese
>Pinyin(phoneticism), or mathmatical formula, but it is nonsense that
>alphabet is a world-wide language. Regarding XML, you can say a
>XML-based language (e.g. ODF) seperate struture and presentation well,
>but never XML itself. Further discussion about XML will be out of our
>goal, let's stop here. What I said "semantic" is what you said
>"structure". I tried to define it by "semantic content(structure)".
>Sorry for my poor English, it often makes misunderstanding.
>
>
Hmmm, hard to say that XML is "out of our goal" since the formats for
the most part we are discussing are written in XML.
If you want to interchange presentation, why not use SVG or XSL-FO? SVG
can represent photographs so I am fairly sure it could represent any
document. I don't know of any XSL-FO based viewers (directly to screen)
but that may just be ignorance on my part.
>I agree with you that there are many kinds of meaning of "open". Like
>Java, many people believe that Java is open but the others deem it the
>property of SUN. So does "RAND". The IPR policy of UOML try to balance
>the open degree, it is 99.99% as what you want, although not 100% by
>now. Further discussion about it will also be out of our goal, we can
>continue this discussion 1-by-1. I hope you can give us some advices on
>it.
>
>
Yes but "balance" in this context means that some one who owns a
critical part of what is to be standardized is trying to create a market
by standardization. I have seen such efforts before and I have very
little sympathy for them. One of the purposes of standards is to define
a level playing field for everyone who wishes to use a standard.
Installing a $gatekeeper$ by standardization who controls access may be
consistent with a pay-for playing field but that limits implementations
to those willing to pay-to-play.
I don't object to people writing commercial software or marketing the
same. But, I don't care for the use of standards as a marketing tool.
Hope you are having a great day!
Patrick
>-Alex
>
>
Original Message-----
>From: Patrick Durusau [mailto:patrick@durusau.net]
>Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 4:27 AM
>To: Alex Wang
>Cc: office@lists.oasis-open.org
>Subject: Re: [office] How about an interoperability Subcommittee?
>
>
>Alex,
>
>Alex Wang wrote:
>
>
>
>>Hi Patrick,
>>Is ISO 8879 SGML?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>Yes, sorry, I spend too much time on standards committees. ;-)
>
>
>
>>SGML try to separate semantic content(structure) and presentation, but
>>it can't work well in any condition. An example is HTML, which based
on
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>SGML, inherited the same theory at begining, but have to add many
>>presentation elements after begining.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>Err, well, XML (which really is based on SGML) seems to work fairly
>well.
>
>To say that HTML was "based" on SGML is true but only in a very limited
>sense of the word.
>
>HTML has "structure" only in a very limited sense of the word. It
>really
>
>is about presentation. There have been efforts to fix that but not very
>successfully.
>
>
>
>>Maybe you pay attention to interop at semantic level only, the new
>>proposed TC will meet your requirment.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>Well, you haven't defined "semantic level" but I presume from your
>slides you mean presentation semantics.
>
>That is one way to look at the semantics of a document and they all
>have
>
>presentation semantics. But it isn't the only view.
>
>
>
>>UOML is never the property of a particular vendor. It is open. Think
>>about Java, if SUN gave up all IPR at begining, I believe MS will
dirty
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>it and the world will under the control of .NET, the same as Windows
>>and Office today.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>The question is whether any implementor can implement the technology
>that is to be standardized without paying fees for some critical part
of
>
>the technology.
>
>Calling something "open" which is only available under RAND is an abuse
>of the term "open." Unless by "open" you mean that no claims will be
>asserted against any implementor of the technology.
>
>Hope you are having a great day!
>
>Patrick
>
>
>
>>-Alex
>>
>>
Original Message-----
>>From: Patrick Durusau [mailto:patrick@durusau.net]
>>Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 3:21 AM
>>To: ALex Wang
>>Cc: office@lists.oasis-open.org
>>Subject: Re: [office] How about an interoperability Subcommittee?
>>
>>
>>Alex,
>>
>>ALex Wang wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>Hi Patrick,
>>>That's a pitty not meet you in joint TC meeting at OASIS Symposium.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>Sorry I wasn't present. But I had promised my wife a vacation long
>>before that meeting was set. ;-)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>I
>>>have uploaded the slides and demo for this TC meeting. The main topic
>>>is to realize interop via UOML. In fact, interop is the main purpose
>>>
>>>
>of
>
>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>the charter of proposed TC, it is at semantic level. For UOML TC,
>>>the main reason to define a operatiing interface standard is for use
>>>of interop, it is at layout level(
>>>http://www.oasis-open.org/events/symposium/2006/slides/Wang.pdf).
>>>I believe that maping to a different format is not reliable. An unify
>>>operating interface is more feasible and can meet market requirement.
>>>
>>>
>I
>
>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>support to form a new SC within this TC, with the help of Adoption TC
>>>and UOML TC, maybe also including the new proposed TC.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I will have to look at your proposal but correct me if I am wrong but
>>isn't the UOML TC operating under RAND?
>>
>>I think the division between structure and presentation, although
>>softening over the years in a number of respects, was the right
>>
>>
>decision
>
>
>>beginning with ISO 8879.
>>
>>Interoperability of presentation (or as you say in your slides
>>post-typesetting) may well meet a market need and be interesting as
>>
>>
>well
>
>
>>from a technical standpoint, but I don't think it would meet what I
>
>
>>consider to be the needs of interoperability. Particularly if the
>>"operating interface standard" is the property of a particular vendor.
>>
>>Hope you are having a great day!
>>
>>Patrick
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>-Alex
>>>
>>>
Original Message-----
>>>From: Patrick Durusau [mailto:patrick@durusau.net]
>>>Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 8:35 PM
>>>To: Charles-H. Schulz
>>>Cc: ALex Wang; robert_weir@us.ibm.com; peter@vandenabeele.com;
>>>office@lists.oasis-open.org; peter.vandenabeele.be@gmail.com
>>>Subject: Re: [office] How about an interoperability Subcommittee?
>>>
>>>
>>>Greetings!
>>>
>>>For reasons I detail below I think interoperability is the *next*
>>>issue but I would caution that we need to be mindful of the TC
charter
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
>>>rules in OASIS. I am not sure that any TC actually has a charter that
>>>would cover a "standard" for interoperability. I don't think any of
>>>those for
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>ODF or the UOML charter would cover it.
>>>
>>>I suspect that a new TC with both specific and 'future' standards
>>>against which interoperability standards could be specified would be
>>>required. Besides, it would provide a more "neutral" meeting place
for
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
>>>the various format supporters to meet.
>>>
>>>It would take a lot of hard work but a TC that is sponsored by *all*
>>>the
>>>
>>>major format proponents I think would start with a high degree of
>>>credibility in the world of technology. Noting that the issue would
be
>>>*mapping* and not sniping about the choices made by any particular
>>>format.
>>>
>>>As many of you know, I urged an EU panel back in March to make a
>>>mapping
>>>
>>>between XML document formats a prerequisite for adoption of any XML
>>>format for office documents a prerequisite for adoption as an ISO
>>>standard. Some of you may not be old enough to remember conversion
>>>software that touted their abilities to convert between literally
>>>hundreds of diverse formats in the "bad old days." I do. We are close
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>to
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>having XML based archival formats and we should not screw that up by
>>>having data islands with inconsistent mappings between XML based
>>>formats.
>>>
>>>Hope everyone is at the start of a great week!
>>>
>>>Patrick
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
--
Patrick Durusau
Patrick@Durusau.net
Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model Member, Text
Encoding Initiative Board of Directors, 2003-2005
Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!