Pressemelding fra NUUG: ECMA OOXML - en ufullstendig spesifikasjon som få kan implementere
aktive at nuug.no
aktive at nuug.no
Mon Apr 7 14:20:49 CEST 2008
Pressemelding fra NUUG, Oslo 2008-04-07
ECMA OOXML - en ufullstendig spesifikasjon som få kan implementere
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Debatten rundt ISO-standardisering av OOXML pågår fortsatt, og endel
undrer kanskje på hvorfor det er viktig. NUUG er involvert i
standardisering for å fremme samvirke og like konkurransevilkår for
alle aktører, og når det gjelder dokumentstandarder, sikre at dagens
og gårsdagens dokumenter også kan leses korrekt i framtiden, det være
seg om 10 eller 200 år.
OOXML er en dårlig spesifikasjon som ikke fremmer samvirke og
antagelig heller ikke kan implementers av andre enn de som har
tilgangen til interne algoritmer i MS Office. Den bør derfor ikke tas
i bruk som lagringsformat for framtidens dokumenter. ISO-godkjenning
endrer dessverre ikke på dette, og problemene kan tidligst være fikset
om 4 år dersom ISO skal gjøre dette. Da forutsettes at ISO og ECMA
øyeblikkelig blir enige om at ISO skal vedlikeholde spesifikasjonen,
og at ISO like øyeblikkelig starter prosessen for å korrigere den. En
god del av feilene kan dessuten bare fikses hvis en får tilgang til
informasjon som i dag bare er tilgjengelig for de som har tilgang til
intern oppførsel i MS Office. Vi har så langt ingen indikasjoner på
at MS kommer til å gjøre disse offentlig tilgjengelige.
I den norske debatten rundt OOXML har det blitt hevdet at de 12
kommentarene som var knyttet til Norges nei-stemme, i det store og
hele var tatt hensyn til da stemmen ble endret til ja. Dette stemmer
ikke, og er en viktig grunn til at så få i den norske komiteen støttet
Microsofts ønske om å endre den norske stemmen. I tillegg til at 80%
av dagens komitemedlemmer var imot å godkjenne OOXML som ISO-standard,
er det verdt å nevne at 100% av de originale medlemmene i komiteen,
dvs som var medlemmer før OOXML kom opp,ville stemme nei.
Realiteten er dermed ikke slik Standard Norge og Microsofts innleide
lobbyist Shahzad Rana har hevdet, da kun et fåtall av kommentarene var
tatt hensyn til, og de aller fleste ble ignorert og påstått tatt
hensyn til ved at det ble gjort irrelevante endringer.
Ni kommentarer ble ikke tatt hensyn til (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12),
to ble delvis tatt hensyn til (7, 10), og en ble tatt fullstendig
hensyn til (5).
Kontaktpersoner
---------------
Leder i NUUG
Petter Reinholdtsen, epost pere at hungry.com
Leder i NUUGs standardgruppe
Idar Tollefsen, epost idart at performancedesign.no, telefon +47 922 26 753
Deltager i NUUGs standardgruppe
Martin Bekkelund, epost martin at bekkelund.net, telefon +47 930 55 510
Referanser
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* Hva er egentlig en åpen standard? http://www.nuug.no/dokumenter/
standard-presse-def-200506.txt
Vedlegg: How were Norway's OOXML comments handled?
--------------------------------------------------
In the first vote on the proposed OOXML standard in 2007, Norway voted
No and submitted twelve technical comments that would have to be
addressed before the Norwegian vote would change to Yes. This document
lists the Norwegian comments and the resulting outcomes. In summary,
nine of the twelve comment were not addressed (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9,
11, 12), two were partially addressed (7, 10), and one was fully
addressed (5).
The Norwegian comments are available as PDF from Standard Norge.
NO-01 The Scope clause in Part 1 is inappropriate for an ISO standard
Justification:
* The Scope clause is self-referential, does not convey any useful
information, and does not conform to JTC1 and ISO Directives for
the scope of a standard or NP (ref. JTC1 Directives, 6.2.1.6; ISO
Directives, Part 2, 6.2.1 Scope). In the absence of an appropriate
Scope clause it is not possible to resolve a number of issues
arising from the current text.
Proposed change by the MB:
* The Scope clause should be rewritten to give a succinct overview
of the contents of the standard without self-reference, for
example: "This International Standard specifies a set of XML
vocabularies for representing legacy documents produced by MS
Office applications. It covers word processing, spreadsheet,
presentation and graphics documents produced by the following
versions of MS Office applications: [list supported versions] It
does not cover documents produced by other office applications."
The exact form of the Scope clause will depend on what decisions
are taken regarding the final structure of the standard (e.g. as a
multi-part standard).
Change accepted in OOXML:
* Scope clause was changed and restructured. All parts of 29500
shall have the following clause:
+ "# Scope clause
This International Standard defines a set of XML vocabularies for
representing word-processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
The goal of this standard is, on the one hand, to represent faithfully
the existing corpus of word-processing documents, spreadsheets and
presentations that have been produced by Microsoft Office applications
(from Microsoft Office 97 to Microsoft Office 2008 inclusive). It also
specifies requirements for Office Open XML consumers and producers ,
and on the other hand, to facilitate extensibility and interoperability
by enabling implementations by multiple vendors and on multiple
platforms.
This part specifies concepts for documents and applications of strict
and transitional conformance."
In addition each part will have a sub clause specifying the exact scope for
that part. In addition each scope clause shall have a reference to the
informative specification of the following:
+ All XML elements which appear in ISO/IEC 29500 but do not appear in
ECMA-376:2006
+ All XML elements which do not appear in ISO/IEC 29500 but appear in
ECMA-376:2006
+ All XML attributes which appear in ISO/IEC 29500 but do not appear in
ECMA-376:2006
+ All XML attributes which do not appear in ISO/IEC 29500 but appear in
ECMA-376:2006
+ All enumeration values which appear in ISO/IEC 29500 but do not appear
in ECMA-376:2006
+ All enumeration values which do not appear in ISO/IEC 29500 but appear
in ECMA-376:2006
+ All simple types which appear in ISO/IEC 29500 but do not appear in
ECMA-376:2006
+ All simple types which do not appear in ISO/IEC 29500 but appear in
ECMA-376:2006
Conclusion:
* The word "legacy" was not added to the document, neither has the
statement about "other office applications". It is also
interesting to note that "existing corpus of word- processing
documents, spreadsheets and presentations" does not include
Microsoft office applications before Office 97. Part of the
reasoning for this comment was to learn if the specification only
should be used for legacy documents, and thus not compete with ODF
on representing future documents, or if it also was to represent
future documents. If it is to represent future documents, it
should be rejected as it competes with ODF. The BRM did not want
to limit the scope of the standard to representing legacy
documents, and wanted it to be used for new documents as well. The
Norwegian comment has therefore not been addressed.
NO-02 Rework into a multi-part standard.
Justification:
* As currently drafted, DIS 29500 covers many areas that are not
directly related to one another. This makes it difficult to review
by National Body experts, difficult to implement, and difficult to
assess compatibility.
Proposed change by the MB:
* Rework into an ISO-style multi-part standard along the following lines:
1. Introduction
2. Common/Core components and metadata
3. WordprocessingML
4. SpreadsheetML
5. PresentationML
6. Extensibility
Each part should have its own Scope and Conformance clause. This
would allow different parts of the standard to be used
independently of each other. The Primer is informative and should
be published as a Technical Report.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* The specification will be reorganised, but not along the lines of
functionally similar sections.
+ The proposed parts are now 1) Fundamentals and Markup Language
Reference, 2) Open Packaging Convention, 3) Markup
Compatibility and Extensibility and 4) Transitional Features.
Conclusion:
* The specification was not changed in a way that allows different
parts to be used independently, and thus Norway's proposal was not
implemented. The Norwegian comment has therefore not been
addressed.
NO-03 Rework into a much more concise standard.
Justification:
* The text of DIS 29500 is too voluminous to be reliably reviewed by
National Body experts, or for implementations to be assessed for
compatibility. It appears to be unnecessarily long, combining
normative text with copious examples and containing a lot of
redundancy.
Proposed change by the MB:
* The text should be shortened considerably, through the removal of
non-normative text (into annexes), the avoidance of redundancy and
other means.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* As far as we know, no relevant change was done. Instead, adding
1400 pages of "collected XML syntax" was accepted as a change.
Conclusion:
* Since the new version of the standard is not available it is
impossible to know whether the specification will be longer or
shorter. Most likely our request on a more concise standard will
not be met. Since much information on deprecated features is to be
moved to "Transitional parts of the document", the standard will
become harder to read since you need to check several places in
the documentation to understand how to use the standard. The
Norwegian comment has therefore not been addressed.
NO-04 The information model is unnecessarily complex.
Justification:
* The XML information model described is unnecessarily
complex. Given the example in the Overview at page 13 (§5.6)
<w:p>
<w:r>
<w:t>Hello, world.</w:t>
</w:r>
</w:p>
* Could - and should - be represented as:
<p>Hello, world.</p>
Proposed change by the MB:
* Simplify the information model and document structure, in order to
ease implementation, interoperability and the processing of the
OOXML documents. Where possible use notations in conformance with
ODF.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* This change was rejected.
Conclusion:
* OOXML did not change according to the proposal from Norway. This
comment has therefore not been addressed.
NO-05 All examples should conform to the XML specification
Justification:
* More than 10% of the examples are not valid XML. This will cause
confusion and could lead to differences in implementation that
will inhibit interoperability.
Proposed change by the MB:
* All examples should be valid XML, except where there is an express
intent to exemplify invalid data.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* This change was accepted.
Conclusion:
* OOXML was promised to change according to the proposal from
Norway. The Norwegian comment has therefore been addressed.
NO-06 DrawingML should be a separate standard
Justification:
* DrawingML has general applicability as an XML vocabulary for
vector graphics. It should therefore be a standard in its own
right that can be referenced in isolation by other ISO standards,
such as ISO 26300.
Proposed change by the MB:
* Remove DrawingML from 29500 and propose it as a separate standard,
or commit to doing so at a later stage.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* It is proposed that the following editorial change be made to the DrawingML
specification:
1. The DrawingML specification is to be reorganized into two sections
1. DrawingML - Framework
2. DrawingML - Components
2. The following sections in the DrawingML specification will be moved
into the "DrawingML - Components" section
1. DrawingML - Paragraphs and Rich Formatting, Section 5.1.5
2. DrawingML - Tables, Section 5.1.6
3. DrawingML - Charts, Section 5.7
4. DrawingML - Chart Shapes, Section 5.8
5. DrawingML - Diagrams, Section 5.9
3. All remaining sections of the DrawingML specification will be moved
into the "DrawingML - Framework" section.
Conclusion:
* The sections on DrawingML were collected into a separate chapter,
and some statements were made that this could be separated out at
a later stage, but no commitment could be made about the work of a
future group. DrawingML was not proposed as a separate standard,
and there was no commitment for doing so at a later stage. The
Norwegian comment has therefore not been addressed.
NO-07 OPC should be a separate standard
Justification:
* The Open Packaging Conventions could support a much broader range
of applications than OOXML. It should therefore be a standard in
its own right that can be referenced in isolation by other ISO
standards, such as ISO 26300.
Proposed change by the MB:
* Remove OPC from 29500 and propose it as a separate standard, or
commit to doing so at a later stage.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* OPC is now a separate part of the standard, but not a separate
standard. The claim was made that processing of a PAS, once
entered, cannot result in creation of multiple standards.
Conclusion:
* The Norwegian proposal was to submit OPC as a separate standard
proposal, not to use this PAS process to create multiple
standards. Reusing OPC when it is a chapter in 29500 with possible
references to the rest of 29500 will be harder than if it was a
separate standard. The Norwegian comment has therefore been
partially addressed.
NO-08 The specification should not include binary notations
Justification:
* Unspecified (or underspecified) binary notations, especially those
with operating system dependencies, inhibit interoperability and
do not belong in an ISO standard. Even well-specified binary
notations, such as bitmasks used to encode multiple boolean
values, are inappropriate in an XML-based interchange
format. Non-standard text-based encodings of control characters,
such as 'bstr' (basic string) are also inappropriate.
Proposed change by the MB:
* All references to platform specific and/or binary notations, such
as DEVMODE for printer settings and bitmasks for boolean values,
should be removed and, where possible, replaced by open, XML-based
standards, more explicit XML vocabulary, or base64 encoding.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* Some of the constructs pointed at were better documented.
* Some of the constructs were marked "transitional".
* The ability to include objects in undocumented binary formats was kept.
* DEVMODE was kept, and was not marked "transitional".
Conclusion:
* The Norwegian comment has not been addressed.
NO-09 The specification should not contain underspecified features
Justification:
* Underspecified features and settings, such as "autoSpaceLikeWord95",
"footnoteLayoutLikeWW8", "lineWrapLikeWord6", "mwSmallCaps",
"optimizeForBrowser", "shapeLayoutLikeWW8", "supressTopSpacingWP",
"truncateFontHeightsLikeWP6", "useWord2002TableStyleRules",
"useWord97LineBreakRules", "useWord97LineBreakRules", "wpJustification",
"wpSpaceWidth", "sldSyncPr", "securityDescriptor", and "revisionsPassword"
preclude uniform implementation and thus inhibit interoperability.
Proposed change by the MB:
* All features should be specified in enough detail to enable
uniform interpretation by multiple implementations. Those that
cannot be specified in sufficient detail should be removed.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* Some (or all, have not checked all) of the underspecified features
got more documentation, but the specifications checked so far was
vague and not detailed enough for a developer to use it to get the
same result without reverse engineering MS Word.
Conclusion:
* As the whole point of this comment was to ensure uniform
interpretation by multiple implementations to make sure the OOXML
documents are processed and displayed the same way in all
implementations of OOXML, it is clear that OOXML was not changed
according to this comment. We did not ask for more text, we asked
for specification in enough detail to enable uniform
interpretation by multiple implementations, and removal of all
features lacking this. The Norwegian comment has therefore not
been addressed.
NO-10 Option sets should be extensible and should avoid cultural bias
Justification:
* Options to features such as border styles, enumeration styles,
list styles, the function NETWORKDAYS(), Clipboard Format Type,
etc. should not exhibit cultural bias or be unduly restrictive,
since this will inhibit adoption internationally.
Proposed change by the MB:
* All such features should be made extensible wherever possible and
defined options should be specified in full in order to enable
uniform implementation.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* New features were added that could do the functions pointed at in
culturally acceptable ways.
* The current features were marked "transitional".
Conclusion:
* The committee attempted to address the issue, but the result was a more
complex standard. The Norwegian comment has therefore been partially
addressed.
NO-11 OOXML should reference, use, and conform to existing standards where
applicable
Justification:
* It has been claimed that the current standard conflicts with other
ISO standards, such as ISO 8601 (Representation of dates and
times), ISO 639 (Codes for the representation of names of
languages) and ISO/IEC 10118-3 (Hash functions). If this is the
case, the specification should be brought into line with these and
other existing standards. The problem is especially apparent in
the case of the 'date1904' attribute. The ambiguity regarding the
status of the year 1900 should be resolved by using ISO standard
dates everywhere.
Proposed change by the MB:
* Ensure that 29500 does not conflict with the above-mentioned
standards and use only ISO standard date formats, not ambiguous
numeric dates.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* The existing parts of the specification using a different date
specification, language names and hash functions were kept. The
use of ISO 8601 dates were added, thus forcing those implementing
this specification to implement at least three different date
formats, and some of them are not following the Gregorian calendar
system. Similar was done for ISO 639, where both the original
language definition was kept while it is also possible to use
language codes from ISO 639, forcing implementations to handle two
separate sets of language codes.
Conclusion:
* OOXML did not change according to the proposal from Norway. The Norwegian
comment has therefore not been addressed.
NO-12 Lack of consistency in notation of values and dimensions
Justification:
* There is no coherent dimension notation throughout the
specification, for instance the relative dimension "87,5%" is
sometimes represented by "pct87", sometimes by "87500" or even by
"4375". This will cause confusion and could lead to
non-interoperable implementations.
Proposed change by the MB:
* Put in place a coherent value system.
Change accepted in OOXML:
* On percentages, the fields were changed to accept two different
formats, the old format and a format that was a text string
followed by a "%" (percent sign) character.
Conclusion:
* The specification still does not have a coherent value
system. Length units, colour settings, etc are still represented
using several different notations. This makes it hard to implement
the specification and will lead to confusion and interoperability
problems. Adding more type of values (as an extra notation for
percent values) only increases the problem. OOXML did not change
sufficiently according to the proposal from Norway. The Norwegian
comment has therefore not been addressed.
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