{"id":1548,"date":"2011-02-10T10:40:41","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T15:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2d823b65bb.nxcli.io\/?p=1548"},"modified":"2011-02-11T12:08:57","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T17:08:57","slug":"the-versions-of-odf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.robweir.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/the-versions-of-odf.html","title":{"rendered":"The Versions of ODF"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been a few months now since the OASIS ODF TC has done substantive technical work on ODF 1.2.\u00a0 We had a 60-day public review last summer, a 15-day public review last December and we will start another (hopefully final) 15-day public review starting this week.\u00a0\u00a0 Every time we make a change to the specification in response to public comments we are required to have another 15-day review of the changes.\u00a0 This is all necessary procedural work, to make sure all stakeholders have the opportunity to comment.\u00a0 But it is not very exciting.<\/p>\n

However, as the ODF 1.2 specification goes through remainder of its review\/approval process in OASIS, we’ve increasingly turned our attention to ODF-Next.\u00a0\u00a0 Tentatively (and we should have a TC vote on this work plan in the next few weeks), we’re looking at a two-year schedule for ODF 1.3, with four intermediate drafts (Committee Specification Drafts or CSDs).\u00a0 The first CSD would appear in September, 2011.\u00a0 We have not yet defined what features will be in ODF 1.3.\u00a0 So this is a great time to join the ODF TC, to “get in on the ground floor” for defining the next release.<\/p>\n

While we await approval of ODF 1.2 and start work on ODF 1.3, we continue to maintain ODF 1.0 and ODF 1.1, the previous versions of ODF.\u00a0 And by “maintain” I mean we receive and track defect reports and publish corrections to the specification\u00a0 So effectively, the OASIS ODF TC is working on four versions of ODF.<\/p>\n

Since the progression from ODF 1.0 –> ODF 1.1 –> ODF 1.2 –> ODF 1.3 is designed to be compatible, the average user will not notice a difference.\u00a0 Your ODF 1.0 documents should load just fine in your ODF 1.2 or ODF 1.3 editor.\u00a0 We try very hard not to introduce “breaking changes” that would cause trouble with older documents.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, the application vendor has a responsibility here as well, to pay attention to version compatibility issues.\u00a0 But from the perspective of the standard I do not believe that we’ve done anything that would prevent an editor from being (at the same time) a conforming ODF 1.0, ODF 1.1 and ODF 1.2 application.\u00a0 In fact, I’d expect most ODF editors today to be able to read any version of ODF, though they might only save the most-current version, or maybe the 2-most current versions.<\/p>\n

An additional complexity is that we have ODF standards in OASIS and ISO.\u00a0 I’ve heard that some are confused by this, especially how these different versions correspond.\u00a0 I hope I can make this clearer.<\/p>\n

First, flash back to the 1990’s.\u00a0\u00a0 After decades of success with standardizing nuts and bolts and shipping containers and the various aspects of the physical world relevant to international trade, ISO was at the crossroads.\u00a0 There wasn’t much more left for them to standardize in that physical world.\u00a0 They were seeing success with management standards, which would soon become a major part of their work, e.g., ISO 9001, quality management.\u00a0 But ISO was not doing that well with technology standards.\u00a0 Their OSI reference network model was a flop.\u00a0 C++ was laboring on, six-years in committee.\u00a0 And then competition emerged from new, more agile, standards consortia, like the IETF and W3C.\u00a0 They were rocking the industry with highly relevant specifications that essentially created the web.\u00a0 Almost every core technology of the internet, including TCP\/IP, HTTP, HTML, XML, JavaScript, SMTP, MIME, POP3, IMAP, etc., was developed outside of the ISO system.<\/p>\n

You can be quite sure that this new competition did not escape notice in Geneva.\u00a0 As they say, “If you can’t beat them, join them”.\u00a0 Or in this case, get them to join you.\u00a0 One of the ways in which ISO\/IEC JTC1 (the ISO committee that controls tech standards) responded was to introduce the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) transposition process.\u00a0 The idea here was to allow recognized standards consortia (and there is a formal ISO process to gain such recognition) to submit already-approved market relevant standards to ISO\/IEC JTC1 for accelerated processing and approval as an International Standard.\u00a0 Essentially, such PAS submissions skip over the ISO Working Group and Subcommittee stages of work, and advance directly to a final approval ballot.\u00a0\u00a0 This is a win-win situation.\u00a0 ISO has more relevant standards in its catalog, and consortia can continue to produce their work at a more nimble pace.<\/p>\n

So when we look at the versions of ODF, we have more than just ODF 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3.\u00a0 For each of these have an OASIS and an ISO version.\u00a0 And for each numbered version we have published corrections, and these are reflected both in the OASIS and the ISO catalogs.\u00a0 It sounds messy at first, but the important thing to note is that OASIS and ISO\/IEC JTC1 have agreed to keep their corresponding versions of ODF “technically equivalent”.\u00a0 This was agreed to in a Memorandum of Understanding.\u00a0\u00a0 This means that you should be able to use the OASIS or the ISO version according to your needs and have confidence that they are compatible.\u00a0 If you require an ISO version, then you can use that.\u00a0 If you want the very latest version, then use the OASIS version, since the ISO version typically lags by a year or more.<\/p>\n

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I hope the above diagram clarifies which versions of ODF are technically equivalent.\u00a0 Note that this is not a time line.\u00a0 The actual order that the various versions were published in is more complicated, since corrections to older versions of ODF can (and do) come after publication of newer editions.\u00a0 But this diagram shows the correspondence of “technically equivalent”\u00a0 OASIS and ISO versions of ODF.\u00a0 The big rounded blocks are published standards, the indented smaller ovals are published corrections (“Errata” in OASIS and “Corrigenda” in ISO), and the indented rectangle on the ISO side is an amendment.<\/p>\n

In particular, note:<\/p>\n