OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC

OpenDocument Specification Document Options

  • 1.  OpenDocument Specification Document Options

    Posted 10-27-2006 11:23
    Dear TC members,
    
    I have discussed the options we have regarding a separation of the 
    OpenDocument specification into several parts with Mary. The two option 
    are described below. It seems to me that option a) fits well to our 
    plans for ODF 1.2, while option b) does not. I therefore would like to 
    propose to the TC that we choose option a). Compared to the single 
    document solution (that is not listed below but of course exists), it 
    provides us with some flexibility regarding authoring of the 
    specification parts and their approval, but does not change anything for 
    the ODF 1.2 ballot for an OASIS standard and its submission to ISO.
    
    Please note that a decision for option a) does not mean that we have to 
    use the flexibility we have for public reviews and committee 
    specification ballots. We may have separate public reviews/cs ballots, 
    but we don't have to. We may decide what is the better option if the 
    documents, or one of it, are ready for a public review.
    
    Best regards
    
    Michael
    
    Options
    
    a) We break the ODF specification into three parts, that all
    together make up ODF, and there each of these parts is not a
    specification of its own. In this case, the fact that we have
    three parts is more or less an editorial matter.
    
    Provided that reviewing the individual parts independent of each other
    is meaningful, we may conduct public reviews of the parts independent of 
    each other. We may further advance the parts to committee specification 
    separately, provided that this makes sense. We may not conduct OASIS 
    standard ballots for the parts separately, and we therefore may not 
    submit them independent of each other to ISO.
    
    b) We break the ODF specification into three parts, where
    each of these parts is a specification of its own. The
    OpenDocument specification itself is either a separate
    document, that references the other three, or one of the
    three documents takes over the role of the OpenDocument
    specification, by referencing the other two.
    
    This is similar to what the Emergency Management TC does. The three 
    parts (or specifications) in this case would be advanced to OASIS 
    standards independent of each other, and would require separate 
    submissions to ISO.