Convenor's Interim Report
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[edit] DIS 29500 (OOXML) Review status, 22 June 2007. Report by the panel convenor
The purpose of this report is to provide a brief summary and analysis of panel activities to date, following the sequence of conference calls that took place on 21/22 June.
| Please note, as for all the content of this Wiki, the panellist views expressed here are not the settled views of BSI. Comments gathered here will be reviewed by parent committees of IST41/-/1 to inform the overall UK position on the DIS 29500 ballot. |
In the spirit of the Wiki, panelists should feel free to add/comment to this report to correct/enhance it as necessary.
[edit] General Progress
There was general agreement that good progress had been made in the review so far, and that the comments made were evidence of the "value add" that the ISO process could deliver given the input of BSI and other National Bodies.
Nevertheless the view was commonly expressed that even given the 30-person strong panel, there was insufficient time to do full justice to the DIS 29500 text and provide the level of scrutiny it should ideally have.
Work has been re-apportioned to make sure we have good coverage of the text, and - in particular - that we pay sufficient attention to SpreadsheetML and PresentationML in the time remaining.
[edit] Review Scope
Panelists had successfully confined themselves, as requested, to a technical review of the DIS 29500 text. For one particular technical area, that of "interoperability" with ODF (ISO/IEC 26300), it remains an open question whether comments are in scope. This will be decided in a review of the comments by our parent committee IST/41, and is likely to hinge on the question of whether the DIS 29500 text itself claims the specification is ODF-interoperable.
[edit] Nature of Comments
The sections below attempt to categorise the comments and to give an overview of their nature. Ultimately all comments could be said to be editorial, since the review process is textual in its nature. However within that broad category the impact of the objections and their proposed remedies varies greatly.
[edit] General Editorial
The text has a large number of minor editorial faults, such as poor wording and punctuation errors. There are also a large number of local syntax errors in technical examples (as found by Inigo Surguy's work). While these are not individually serious faults, their high frequency suggests a lack of rigour in the document preparation process, and surprise was generally expressed that Ecma should give its imprimatur to such a slipshod text.
[edit] Specific Editorial
The typographical and technical syntax errors referred to above clearly need to be fixed; UK comments pointing these out will no doubt be welcomed by the submitter.
There are many comments which, while they are still relatively minor, suggest slightly more impactful changes. Examples of these include:
- Requests that certain terms are given formal definitions (e.g. "BATHTEXT")
- Requests that names be changed (e.g., most fundamentally, that the name "Office Open XML" is changed)
- Requests that the fullness and accuracy of referencing is improved (e.g. this reference to QuickTime)
- Requests that the examples should not be repeated; rather a few good, correct, validated and complete examples should be referenced as needed
... and there are a host of suggestions for making local improvements to the text in specific ways.
[edit] Major Structural
Some requested changes suggest a far reaching alteration to the text. Examples of these include:
- A request that DIS 29500's mathematical markup language be replaced with MathML
- A request that VML is removed
Clearly, implementing any of these would significantly change the complexion of the text.
[edit] Fundamental
A few fundamental objections would require, if implemented, significant re-drafting or re-scoping of the text:
- A scoping claim in DIS 29500 suggests it addresses questions of compatibility with legacy (pre-OOXML) Office documents. A request has been made that this claim is either removed, or the text is re-drafted to justify its inclusion
- Parts of DIS 29500 invoke unspecified application behaviour; the view had been expressed that the text must at all times make the expected behaviour of conformant implementation clear
Again, implementing any of these would result in a substantially different text to that which started on the ISO fast track.
[edit] Next Steps
Panelists are advised to continue a close technical scrutiny of DIS 29500. Once they are comfortable with the fine detail they should take the opportunity to consider wider technical issues such as the 'fit' between their portion and other portions of the text, and the degree to which the specification exemplifies best practice.
Keep up the good work!
N.B. Comments received after 18:00 BST on Monday 23 July will not be considered for inclusion in the UK response.
___________
Alexbrn 15:49, 22 June 2007 (BST)
Convenor, IST41/-/1
