Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: Do not support writing to OOXML format

On 1/1/2011 7:53 PM, Italo Vignoli wrote:
> On 01/01/2011 11:29 PM, Barbara Duprey wrote:
>
> > Several of the comments here suggest a middle road, allowing the save
> > but with a message clarifying the limitations of the format (and perhaps
> > recommending use of the XP formats if interoperating with an MS-only
> > shop; their ODF support is not truly interoperable at a reasonable
> > level, the older formats come closer). That seems reasonable, at least
> > for editing documents that are received in these formats -- I'm not
> > convinced it should be allowed for new work, though. At the least, the
> > SaveAs dialog should label the format using the word Transitional. It
> > probably makes sense to start working towards OOXML "Strict" export as
> > soon as that is a reasonably stationary target, though. Wouldn't it be
> > great if LibO were the first implementation compliant with the ISO
> > standard? And if the other FOSS implementations also headed there, we
> > could beat MS at their own game!
>
> Standards support is a thorny field. The reality is that no one supports a standard by default, 
> but only with a specific choice in configuration (including LibreOffice with ODF, as 1.2 is not 
> yet the standard format and 1.2 Extended is not going to be a standard).
>
> Supporting OOXML Strict today would make LO not compatible with MS Office, and users do want 
> interoperability and not just standard compliance.

Yes, that's why I think that it could make sense to write the Transitiional formats, with 
appropriate warnings, at least for editing an existing document created in that form. But if we 
offered both choices in the SaveAs, the way we support a number of different older MS formats with 
appropriate version labeling, people could still choose the interoperable format. I'm not saying we 
should go to Strict only. That would indeed be wrong, leading people to think that they could create 
a .docx (for example) that would be interoperable when it is not. So I guess that's saying that a 
new document could be created and saved as the Transitional format, at least as soon as we also 
offered the Strict format. I just think we could avoid that situation until that point, though, as 
long as the XP formats are reasonably interoperable. A new document created in LibO and saved in an 
XP format should not violate interoperability, as long as MS continues to support that format. If 
they dropped XP format support before we had a Strict version available, I agree we'd have to allow 
writing new Transitional documents at that point. I'm just leery of doing it now.

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