Out of time?

I wanted to talk about some of the comments I wish we could have dealt with but we didn't have enough time. We'll need to follow up with the national body for more information, and deal with it in maintenance. Here's the full list if you are interested (https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/group_public/download.php/18912/iso-comment-responses.odt), but I thought I'd highlight a few:

UK Comment #3 :

The text frequently uses terms borrowed from other standards but with narrower or in other ways altered meanings.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

UK Comment #9:

The ODF schema contains a number of features whose use appears to relate to specific implementation choices or be constrained by a specific implementation restrictions. Examples include features that are application-specific or which would only be available on specific operating platforms (such as DDE, OLE).

Response:

… while the OpenDocument schema supports the use of DDE, it does not require its support since the content of any such element is represented in the resulting instance.

Similarly, the OpenDocument schema does not require support for OLE objects, but does support their inclusion in an OpenDocument document, much as it supports the inclusion of any other binary object (not in XML).

Merely providing support for binary objects does not bind any implementor to support any particular binary objects or protocols for their use.

UK Comment #10:

Some properties whose values are measurements constrain the choice of units of measurement in ways that are implementation-dependent. While it is recognised that not all implementations will be able to support all choices of units of measurement, the format should be flexible enough to allow new implementations that do not impose the same constraints.

Response:

The TC intends to clarify which units of measurements should or may be supported by implementations in a future OpenDocument specification.

UK Comment #11:

Some properties whose values are measurements constrain the choice of units of measurement in ways that are implementation-dependent. While it is recognised that not all implementations will be able to support all choices of units of measurement, the format should be flexible enough to allow new implementations that do not impose the same constraints.

Response:

The TC intends to define all constrains on string values for measurements by patterns in a future OpenDocument specification.

UK Comment #11:

Some properties whose values are measurements constrain the choice of units of measurement in ways that are implementation-dependent. While it is recognised that not all implementations will be able to support all choices of units of measurement, the format should be flexible enough to allow new implementations that do not impose the same constraints.

Response:

The TC intends to define all constrains on string values for measurements by patterns in a future OpenDocument specification.

UK Comment #12:

Spatial frames of reference for page layout and object rotation are not clearly defined.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

UK Comment #13:

The rationale for mixing functionalities from different sources/namespaces (e.g. XSL-FO, SVG and CSS2) is not properly explained in each case.

Response:

The format specifies the different namespaces and how they are used. It is not an expository document making a case for one solution over another. As a standard it is stating the rule, not arguing for it.

Japan Comment #3:

Add the features of accessibility, if possible.

Response:

The TC acknowledges the comment by the Japanese National Body on accessibility issues. The OpenDocument TC's Accessibility Subcommittee has reviewed the OpenDocument v1.0 specification, has identified 9 accessibility issues in OpenDocument v1.0, and proposes candidate solutions to them. With these changes, we believe that OpenDocument will meet or exceed the accessibility support provided in all other office file formats as well as that specified in the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

Due to structures on the revision process in OASIS and time constraints we were unable to add these features to the current version of OpenDocument submitted to ISO, but they shall be added to the next revision of OpenDocument. We appreciate the Japanese National Body correcting our oversight in this area.

China Comment #4:

ODF in W3C schema should be provided in addition to RelaxNG specification.

Response:

The OpenDocument schema is specified in Relax-NG, which is an ISO standard. The purpose of the schema is the validation of OpenDocument instances. Providing a W3C XSD schema would be possible, but since not all concepts that exist in Relax-NG also exist in W3C XSD and vice versa, the W3C XSD schema would not accept exactly the same set of documents as the Relax-NG schema. It therefore could not be used for validation purposes. Providing a W3C XSD schema for this reason seems not be reasonable.

China Comment #5:

The document structure should be described by means of hierarchical elements for better extensibility, whereas the current version uses too many attributes.

Response:

There are many factors that have influenced whether information is represented as an attribute or an element in OpenDocument. One major factor was whether the information is represented as element or as attribute in the standards OpenDocument is based on.

Because there are no major differences how elements and attributes are specified in Relax-NG, the OpenDocument TC is not aware of any advantages regarding extensibility that the use of elements has over the use of attributes.

China Comment #9:

Text table is hard to transform into other formats due to its faulty design.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 10:

Representation of graphics and chart is imperfect, e.g., the incompact chart description in spreadsheet.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 11

Field representation is inexplicit and incomplete.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 12

Some values adopted are not described clearly in the standard document, e.g., some string and enumerate values.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 13

International markup. i.e., multilingual and localized tags should be supported.

Response:

The information provided in the comment is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.

China Comment 14

Function related to Chinese processing should be enhanced, e.g., to support binding lines and diagonally divided table cells.

Response:

OpenDocument supports diagonal border lines. They are described in section 15.11.8

The information provided in the comment regarding binding lines is not sufficient to provide a response to it. The TC may have further responses to this comment when it gets more detailed information.