I want to erase a misconception. OASIS is a standards development organization. Their work products are specifications, not code. The closest to code are schemas (in Relax NG in the case of ODF) for the XML structures that carry the ODF document representation.
The specifications do require expertise, but the intention is that someone "skilled in the art" could independently produce a conforming implementation without having to look at any code of an implementation. (That's the ideal; I think it is safe to say that the ODF specification is still a bit immature in that respect. It will improve over time.) Programmers might or might not be inclined to do what it takes to digest one of these applications and provide QA and clarifying text improvements. Fewer seem inclined to engage in the task of creating such specifications. While the first-line of users are adopters of specifications in implementations, it is desirable to have participation of others, just as it is important at Apache and TDF. It is just that the bug reports are not about implementations, but questions and comments on a specification. People here who participate in the OASIS OpenDocument TC include Regina Henschel, who has been diligent in reviewing and questioning definitions of spreadsheet functions in ODF, and Thorsten Behrens, who does bring a strong implementer perspective. Charles Schulz of TDF is on the OASIS Board. There may be others but I've recognized these three in recent contributions on this list. - Dennis PS: I'll wager that the ODF specifications themselves have not been a topic of discussion among ODFAuthors. I'd be delighted if they were, though there is a distance from what the format is and users experience of software that supports the format. -----Original Message----- From: Jean Hollis Weber [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2011 16:03 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [libreoffice-documentation] ODFauthors On Sun, 2011-06-19 at 22:23 +0100, Tom Davies wrote: > Hi :) > > ODFauthors only cover LibreOffice and OpenOffice but there name suggests they > might expand to cover other projects? Did they used to be 1 section of the > OpenOffice Community? or where they always separate? > > TDF's steering committee are talking about paying for membership to Oasis and > i > have been wondering if it would be appropriate to ask TDF's SC if they could > get > a reduced rate for ODFauthors, or include them in the same fee or should we > ask > TDF's SC and Apache to each put forwards half the costs for ODFauthors? I > imagine that it might be difficult for ODFauthors to raise the funding > required > to join so i was wondering how much support we could or should offer. > > > Regards from > Tom :) > The ODFAuthors website can be used by anyone or any group that is producing documentation for any product that supports the OpenDocument Format. We'd love to have it expand beyond the existing two products. The original group (and their website) was known as "OOoAuthors"; it was set up by some members of the OpenOffice.org community to produce user guides for OOo. It has always been autonomous, although the user guides eventually were adopted as "official" OOo documentation. Possibly relevant information: because ODFAuthors as an organisation has no legal standing, its finances are handled by an incorporated Australian not-for-profit association called Friends of OpenDocument, Inc. The domain name is now owned by TDF, which hosts the website. I personally don't see any reason why ODFAuthors should be involved with OASIS; we are documenters, not coders. Any interested individuals who happen to be involved with ODFAuthors should also be involved with other groups that are more relevant. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
