Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 11th Oct 2005 11:28 UTC
Features, Office The group behind the OpenDocument standard has submitted the document format to a key standards organization, a move that could make open-source desktop applications more attractive to governments. OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, said it has submitted the standard to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
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Long Process
by on Tue 11th Oct 2005 16:10 UTC

Member since:

Being submitted is a long shot from being adopted.

Most items submitted to ISO for consideration are rejected numerous times before being adopted.

Most items submitted are never adopted.

Odd things have been known to happen as a result of these applications. Request for competative opinions being among them.

RE: Long Process
by Mediocre Sarcasm Man on Tue 11th Oct 2005 16:55 in reply to "Long Process"
Mediocre Sarcasm Man Member since:
2005-07-06

Most items submitted are never adopted.

OpenDocument is already being adopted. The hope here is that being accepted as an ISO standard will increase the rate of adoption.

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RE[2]: Long Process
by renox on Tue 11th Oct 2005 20:50 in reply to "RE: Long Process"
renox Member since:
2005-07-06

You misunderstood what the grand-parent wrote: most items submitted are never adopted as a standard by the ISO itself.
Ie submitting a proposal for a standard to the ISO doesn't mean that it will be standardised by the ISO.

As for those who says that many people use already the "Open document" format, I don't think so: OpenOffice 1.x doesn't write documents to the 'Open Document' format.

And I remember reading about a bug (in OOo 2 beta) which gives bad paragraph number when you read it with KWord..

So while I hope that the "Open Document" format will be a success, let's not forget that it is an extremely young format and that youth bugs and incompleteness (formulas in spreadsheet are not part of the standard for example) are expected..

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RE[2]: Long Process
by on Tue 11th Oct 2005 21:36 in reply to "RE: Long Process"
Member since:

"OpenDocument is already being adopted. The hope here is that being accepted as an ISO standard will increase the rate of adoption."

You missed the point by miles........

Being "submitted", and being "adopted", are far flung from one another.

If I had to bet on this one......
It will never be adopted.

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RE: Long Process
by on Wed 12th Oct 2005 04:16 in reply to "Long Process"
Member since:

I agree with everything you say, in the general case of ISO standardization.

That said, the process of ISO certification will likely lead to improvements to OpenDocument just as moving the OpenOffice 1.x/StarOffice 7.x format went through changes on the way to becoming an OASIS standard.

All of this is a good thing.

I have little doubt that either OpenDocument or a revised revision of OpenDocument will be an ISO standard. The only questions in my mind are;

* When?
* What are the places that need to be improved, if any?
* Will OD become an ISO standard as one unit or as seperate parts (say, ODT seperate from ODS)?

I would expect that the ODS (spreadsheet) format will be improved to include standard formula support or standardized formula types (if one is not good enough for whatever reason).

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