Re: Open Office file formats (Oasis-open) and gnumeric

[Russell McOrmond <russell flora ca>]

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003, Jody Goldberg wrote:

> I was fairly serious about this.  The extensions would take me about
> 2 days given my familiarity with the code base.  A team of students
> could easily complete it within a month.

  Please send me an email detailing your suggestion and I will forward it 
to the students.   They write documentation/specifications this month, but 
don't code until October-November time-frame (Officially - one student 
suggested he may start on the side during his summer work term).

  They are sending me early requirements at this point, and what you are 
suggesting may be possible.


> To paraphrase a Dan Akroyd line in Dragnet
>     "I'll be doing it holding my nose which means I'll be doing it
>      with one hand"

  Unless we get funding, this is entirely expected.   This isn't going to 
be sexy on a technical level, just strategic.

> Gnumeric will support whatever formats people request.  It really is
> that simple.  However, in all format conversions data is usually
> lost at some level.  If OASIS to accept OO's format OO will likely
> be the only thing that will ever truely implement it.

  You need to remember that OpenOffice.org is a derivative of StarOffice
which has/had its own (binary) file format.  The OpenOffice.org XML format
may have been created with some knowledge of the internals of StarOffice,
but it is not its 'native format' any more than it will be for GNUmeric or
AbiWord.

  If the format is lossy for any implementor, then the first core
requirement of the original pre-OASIS file format team's mission will
have failed:

http://xml.openoffice.org/general.html
    Core Requirements (these items are absolutely required)

     1. The file format must be capable of being used as an office
     program's native file format. The format must be "non-lossy" and must
     support (at least) the full capability of a StarOffice/OpenOffice
     document. The format is likely to be used for document interchange 
     but that use alone is not enough."



  I have heard the valid complaint that implementing it in simpler tools
is overkill.  I also have no concept of what the term 'graceful
degradation' means for an editing tool:  What do you do with content
encapsulated within tags that you don't understand?

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses, 
 VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen 
 and not a third party.   -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/