ODF 1.2, Part 3 goes out for Public Review

A major milestone for ODF 1.2 was reached on Friday. Part 3 of ODF 1.2, which specifies document packaging (how a document’s XML, images and metadata are combined into a single file and are optionally encrypted or signed), went out for a 60-day public review period. This public review period will run through January 12th, 2010. A public review is a necessary OASIS procedure before a Committee Draft can be approved as a Committee Specification and then as an OASIS Standard.

The official announcement of the review has more information, including links to download the public review draft and information on how to submit comments on the draft.

Compared to the packaging specification used in ODF 1.0 and ODF 1.1, the main differences are:

1. We’ve split this material into its own specification, since these packaging conventions are more widely applicable, and in fact have been more widely used than just in ODF. For example, the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), who standardize the increasingly important ePub digital book format, use ODF’s packaging as the base of their Open eBook Publication Structure Container Format (OCF) 1.0 specification.
2. We’ve added digital signature support (chapter 4) based on the W3C’s XML Digital Signature Core, including the ability to use standardized extensions such as XAdES.
3. We now have an RDF-based metadata framework with OWL ontology for the manifest file (chapter 5).
4. We include a more detailed conformance definition has been added, including conformance targets for packages, producers and consumers, as well as a separate conformance class for extended packages.
5. Generally, a redraft of the specification to ISO style guidelines.

This specification is only 34 pages long, so if you’re at all interested please give it a look  between now and January 12th, and send along any comments via the office-comment list. Anything that improves the specification is welcome, from reports of typographical errors, to technical omissions or errors, to suggestions for future features. It is all good.

And if you want to follow along, you can track the incoming comments in several ways:

• Subscribe to the office-comment list mentioned above.
• View the archives of the off-comment list.
• View the public review comments we’re tracking in JIRA. I have a python script that scrapes the office-comment list and enters them into JIRA. This will be more complete than the office-comment list because it will includes additional comments from ODF TC.
• I have another python script that takes each newly entered issue from JIRA and sends it out via Twitter. So you can follow all new ODF issues by subscribing to @ODFJIRA. Depending on your Twitter reader, you might be able to mark some issues as “favorites” and return to them later to see how they have been resolved.  (While you’re at it, you might also follow me, @RCWeir)

Also, keep your eye open for the announcement of a public review for ODF 1.2, Part 1 (ODF Schema) and Part 2 (OpenFormula), which will be ready for review soon.