An Antic Disposition

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Document Freedom: How to know when you have it

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Today is Document Freedom Day.  In the five years since Open Document Format (ODF) first was approved in OASIS we have certainly made progress, but there is still work remaining to be done.  How will we know when we have arrived?  At what point can we declare victory and say “Free at last”?  I think that when we  can agree that all of the following statements are true, then at that point we have achieved the substantial benefits of document freedom.

  • I can create documents on the platform of my choice, using the software of my choice.
  • I can migrate to another editing environment (application or operating system) without losing high-fidelity access to my existing documents.
  • I can send my documents to anyone and know that they can read them without requiring the purchase of new software.
  • I can receive documents from anyone and know that I can read them without requiring the purchase of new software.
  • I have confidence that the documents I create today can be read and understood, 10, 25 or 50 years from now.
  • Programmers can write and distribute software that reads and writes documents without paying royalties to anyone.
  • I have confidence that the document format standard is being evolved in a way that guarantees the above rights equally for all users and vendors.

We’ve made substantial progress on these fronts, but I don’t think we’re there yet.  We should celebrate our substantial progress, while at the same time commit ourselves for the remaining work ahead.  For example, we still need to improve interoperability.  In a few weeks we will have our next ODF Plugfest, in Granada, where ODF implementors will gather for the 3rd time to work together to improve interoperability among their implementations.

ODF 1.2 Part 1 Public Review

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Salt and Fresh-ground Pepper (photo by author)

A major milestone was reached for the OASIS ODF TC today.  The latest Committee Draft of ODF 1.2 Part 1 was sent out for a 60-day public review.

“What does this mean, and why should I care?” you might be asking.  That’s a fair question.

First, a quick review of the OASIS standards approval process.  The stages look like this:

  1. TC creates one or more Working Drafts
  2. A Working Draft may then additionally be approved as a Committee Draft
  3. A Committee Draft may then be additionally approved as a Public Review Draft
  4. After addressing received public comments, a Committee Draft may be approved as a Committee Specification
  5. Finally, a Committee Specification may be voted on by OASIS as an OASIS Standard

There is the possibility of iteration at most of these stages.  So we’re not done with ODF 1.2.   There is still work to be done, but we are certainly in the endgame now.

Also, it is important to remember that ODF 1.2 has been factored into three “parts”:

  • Part 1 specifies the core schema
  • Part 2 is OpenFormula (spreadsheet formulas)
  • Part 3 defines the packaging model of ODF, and went out for public review back in November

Part 1 is by far the largest of the 3 parts, at 838 pages.  Here is a high-level view of what is covered:

  1. Introduction
  2. Scope
  3. Document Structure
  4. Metadata
  5. Text Content
  6. Paragraph Elements Content
  7. Text Fields
  8. Text Indexes
  9. Tables
  10. Graphic Content
  11. Chart Content
  12. Database Front-end Document Content
  13. Form Content
  14. Common Content
  15. SMIL Animations
  16. Styles
  17. Formatting Elements
  18. Datatypes
  19. General Attributes
  20. Formatting Attributes
  21. Document Processing
  22. Conformance
  23. Appendix A.  OpenDocument Relax NG Schema
  24. Appendix B.  OpenDocument Metadata Manifest Ontology
  25. Appendix C.  MIME Types and File Name Extensions (Non Normative)
  26. Appendix E.  Recommend Usage of SMIL
  27. Appendix G.  Acknowledgments (Non Normative)

If any of this interests you I’d encourage you to take a look at the draft and submit comments per the process defined in the public review announcement.  I expect few will review the entire specification, but even if you can review only a chapter of particular interest to you, or even do a random page review, that will help.  We’re looking for any reasonable feedback, from typographical errors, to ambiguities to new feature proposals.  It is all good.

You can follow the incoming comments via the TC’s comment list, or unofficially via the ODFJIRA Twitter feed.

Now, I know that a vigorous public review, with many reviewers and many comments, is seen in some quarters as inconvenient and troublesome.  It is thought better (in those circles) for standards to sail by, unread, unchallenged and unimplemented.  I do not subscribe to that view.  I ask you to not be gentle on the ODF 1.2 public review draft.  Send us a lot of comments, so we know where we need to improve.  Send us a lot of defect reports, so we know what to fix.  Send us a lot of feature proposals, so we know what to do next.  Short of joining the ODF TC directly, this is the best opportunity to give us feedback.