Hi all. We, at the project, hope that the lack of discussion is not a negative sign !
In the meantime, we have been working behind the scenes, and a couple of things have happened: - The proposal is now on the incubator wiki / corinthiaProposal <https://wiki.apache.org/incubator/CorinthiaProposal> - Dennis Hamilton (incubator, aoo committer) joined the initial committer list. His expertise in especially document formats will be of great value to the project, Dennis is also providing a lot of good feedback on our open issues. - Daniel Gruno (Humbedooh) has volunteered to be mentor for the project. We look forward to guidance in all the tricky "paper work". - Talks are being prepared for ACNA. We are more than happy to answer any questions and make requested changes. on behalf of the project jan i On 24 November 2014 at 22:14, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) < [email protected]> wrote: > There are some passing similarities with Forrest here. I'm not suggesting > any changes to the proposal, just flagging that the intermediate format > approach described here is the approach Forrest takes. The focus for > Forrest was not on document format conversion but there is a lot of > experience there in using intermediate formats. > > Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc. > A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation > > -----Original Message----- > From: jan i [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Monday, November 24, 2014 12:37 PM > To: jan i > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [PROPOSAL] [DISCUSSION] Corinthia for Incubation. > > Hi. > > Sorry, somebody hit me with the big GIT hammer !! I did something with git > that should not be done. > > The correct text is: > ================= COPY ============== > ## Proposal > The goal of Corinthia is to provide a responsive design editor as well as > a toolkit that enacts a defined conversion between different office > document formats. Responsive design fits the layout as needed, tablet or > desktop. > The editor is a lightweight editor - an extension and not a replacement > for the desktop editor. > > Many office document programs claim to read/write to the ISO open > standards for office documents, OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Open Office > XML (OOXML), but do not document which parts are left unimplemented. > Furthermore, the standards have a large number of "implementation defined" > parts, making real-world congruence chancy. The Corinthia toolkit wants to > put this unacknowledged aspect into the open and provide "compliance > sheets" for document formats, as known from industry computer protocols. > > Corinthia aims at generating a large set of test documents, which can be > used to verify the "compliance sheets". The code can work as test case for > other applications (or entities tendering for OOXML/ODF based systems) as > well. > > The base of Corinthia and its toolkit is the library DocFormats, which > converts between different office document file formats. Currently it > supports .docx (part of the OOXML specification), HTML, and LaTeX > (export-only). > > The design of DocFormats is based on on the idea of bidirectional > transformation (BDT), in which a specific document (the original file in > its source format) is converted into an abstract document (in the > destination format). A modified version of the abstract document can then > be used to update the specific document in a non-destructive manner, > keeping intact all parts of the file which are not supported in the > abstract format by modifying the original file rather than replacing it. > > Descriptions of BDT can be found in: > > Aaron Bohannon, J. Nathan Foster, Benjamin C. Pierce et. al. Boomerang: > Resourceful Lenses for String Data. Technical Report MS-CIS-07-15 > Department of Computer and Information Science University of Pennsylvania. > November 2007. [boomerang.pdf]( > http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/boomerang.pdf) > > Benjamin Pierce. Foundations for Bidirectional Programming. ICMT2009 - > International Conference on Model Transformation. June 2009. > [icmt-2009-slides.pdf]( > http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/icmt-2009-slides.pdf) > > The short term goal of the project is to have an easy-to-integrate library > that any application can use to embed support for a range of different file > formats, and use the parsing, serialisation, and conversion facilities for > various purposes. These include editors, batch conversion tools, web > publishing systems, document analysis tools, and content management > systems. By abstracting over different file formats and using HTML as a > common intermediate format, one can just code an application to that end, > and let DocFormats take care of conversion to other formats. > > The medium term goal of the project is to have a series of end-user > applications (separate from the library itself), including an editor and > file conversion tool. These will serve as examples of how the libraries can > be used. > > And ultimately to have a touch based UI for office documents. > > It is also a goal to cooperate with other open source projects, in terms > of getting input from them as well as providing APIs for their use. > Corinthia is meant to be easy to understand and work with, making it more > approachable for a range of projects. > > ## Background > DocFormats has been shipping as part of UX Write on the iOS app store > since February 2013. From this perspective, it is a stable, mature library > that works for the most commonly-used features of .docx formats. As an open > source project, it is completely new, and from this perspective is very > much in its early stages. We are currently exploring the best way to > leverage the existing work that has been done to make it easier to > integrate in other projects, as well as support more file formats. > > ## Rationale > Apache's mission to produce software for the public good, fits with > Corinthia's idea of providing an editor and thoroughly documented > conversion of office documents, thereby hopefully show that implementations > can and should be documented especially where the standards offer options, > which will help to ensure interoperability. > > We strongly believe the project has potential to grow by cooperating with > other projects and offers something mature projects cannot offer, a chance > to take advantage of new architectures and design philosophies, as well as > also to learn from, and not just reproduce, history. > > We have found that Apache committers are loyal to Apache, and more likely > to take part in Corinthia.incubator than Corinthia.GitHub. > > > ## Initial Goals > The initial and most important goal is to enlarge the community consisting > of developers, testers, and people who know the standards in depth. > > Technically there are four goals: > - Cleanup core, to make it easy to add filters (format converters) > - Complete the ODF filter > - Add spreadsheeet/drawing formats to the ODF and OOXML filters > - Produce an editor based on JavaScript & HTML which can be embedded in > mobile apps or used in a Web browser > > Our initial goals might not be big visions, but we prefer something > reachable, and then make bigger goals as we grow. > > ## Current Status > ### Meritocracy > Some of the initial committers are already part of Apache, and those who > are not are getting used to working "the Apache way". > > ### Community > Our community could be larger, and committers from AOO and others have > shown interest in the project, but we have preferred to stay a stable, but > very active group until we are part of Incubator. > > Apache/Incubator provides a lot of tools (e.g., mailing lists) and > community practices—The Apache Way--that enable community engagement and > growth. > > ### Core Developers > Peter Kelly, [email protected]<br> Jan Iversen, ASF member++<br> > Svante Schubert, ASF committer > > Remark: Louis and Dorte do not develop, but help with non-coding tasks. > > ### Alignment > Corinthia has commonalities with AOO, but is not competing. AOO is a > desktop product and integrated suite and Corinthia is a lightweight editor > and a developer product (library). > > Corinthia has a document API like POI, but the focus is different. > Corinthia targets a conversion library and an editor. POI is a handling > API. > > Sharing test documents with projects like AOO and POI seems to make a lot > of sense. > > ## Known Risks > The biggest risk Corinthia faces is failing to attract a larger community > (not only developers but also testers and documenters). A number of actions > has already been taken to minimize the risk: > - Contact to student projects (in particular Capstone) > - Talks at ApacheConEU > > The project uses existing technologies, so there are no real technological > risks. > > There is of course a risk that nobody wants to use the project, but the > fun building the community and project make this risk bearable. > > ### Orphaned products > None > > ### Inexperience with Open Source > All initial committers have worked several years with open source. > > ### Homogenous Developers > The initial committers are geographically distributed across the world. > Half of the initial developers are experienced Apache committers and all > have experience in working in distributed development communities. > > The original source has already been partly refactored by other developers > to make sure knowledge is spread among multiple people. > > ### Reliance on Salaried Developers > No committers are being paid to participate. > > However, it should be mentioned the Peter Kelly and Louis Suarez-Potts > have a company that has added a commercial editor for iPhone on top of the > library. The issue has been discussed. > > ### Relationships with Other Apache Products Corinthia has/will have a > relation to at least the following projects: > - **AOO**, core developers have been told on dev@ that for targeting > mobile platforms, a rewrite of AOO would be better than building on top of > the existing sources. It is our hope to have long and beneficial > interaction with AOO. > - **Httpd**, we would like to make a module that on the fly presents > odf/ooxml documents as pure html. > - **POI**, Corinthia library is similar to POI, but simpler, more generic, > and written in C. We hope to be able to share know-how as well as test > cases. > > Corinthia is based on document standards which are used by numerous > high-profile projects. We would like to cooperate with the projects to > exchange knowledge. > > ## Documentation > The current documentation can be found at [github]( > https://github.com/uxproductivity/Corinthia/wiki)<br> > The project is aware that this is work in progress and there is special > attention on this task. > > ## Initial Source > The initial source was closed-source developed solely by Peter Kelly. The > source has moved to GitHub as Open Source and all files changed to ASLv2 to > signal the grant. > > Remark, the source was part of the UX Write product. The editor of UX > Write is currently not part of the grant. > > ## Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan Source code will be > moved from the GitHub uxproductivity organisation space to the Apache space > as defined by incubator.<br> Peter Kelly will grant the repo to ASF. > > ## External Dependencies > The current source includes 2 third party libraries (see > [DocFormats/3rdparty]( > > https://github.com/uxproductivity/DocFormats/tree/master/DocFormats/3rdparty > )) > to which minor modifications have been made. > - **minizip**, a layer on top of zlib > - **w3c-tidy-html5**, a html5 manipulation lib. > > Remark, currently the changes made to the original sources are > undocumented. The plan is to have the 1-1 sources in the repo (or have > users download it), and then apply a patch. > > Furthermore, Corinthia depends on > - libxml2 > - zlib > - SDL > > ## Cryptography > Corinthia does not use cryptography nor are there plans to use it.<br> In > the medium term we would like to use digital signing of the convenience > binaries. > > ## Required Resources > ### Mailing lists > We would like to have: > > [email protected] for general discussions<br> > [email protected] for private discussions > > ### Subversion Directory > We prefer not to use SVN. > > ### Git Repository > Our current git repository is [github]( > https://github.com/uxproductivity/Corinthia). > > We would like the repo to be moved to the github apache organisation under > the name "corinthia" or "corinthia.incubator" > > ### Issue Tracking > We are currently using github issues, which works fine, but would like to > change to Jira. > > ### Other Resources > - Wiki: We are currently using github wiki, we would like to move to an > Apache supported wiki (preferable mediawiki), before our documentations > gets too complicated to move. > > - Buildbot: We would like to be able to build/test on OSX, Windows and > Ubuntu. > > - Web: We would like, if possible, to have the home page > corinthia.incubator.apache.org (just raw html please). > > - Blog: We would like, to have a blog, preferable wordpress. > > > ## Initial Committers > Our initial list of committers is not as long as we would have liked it to > be, but have not pushed for a larger community before becoming part of ASF. > > Dorte Fjalland, [email protected] (ICLA mailed)<br> Jan Iversen, > [email protected] (ASF member++)<br> Louis Suárez-Potts, [email protected] > (AOO PMC)<br> Peter Kelly, [email protected] (ICLA mailed)<br> > Svante Schubert, [email protected] (AOO committer) > > ## Affiliations > None > > ## Sponsors > ### Champion > Jan Iversen > > ### Nominated Mentors > Jan Iversen. > > Since jan is involved in the project, it would be beneficial to have at > least a second mentor with a "outside" view, who can help focus on the > administrative logistics. > > ### Sponsoring Entity > Incubator IPMC. > ========================= > > Sorry about that, please blame me, not the project. > > rgds > jan i. > > > On 24 November 2014 at 20:18, jan i <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > On behalf of the project team I would like to propose Corinthia as an > > Apache Incubator project. The complete proposal can be found at: > > https://github.com/uxproductivity/Corinthia/wiki/Incubator-proposal > > > > We will move the proposal to incubator wiki, if it gets accepted and > > all project members have r/w access. > > > > I would like to point out, that we really would like a second mentor, > > who are familiar with all the "paperwork" and can help give a second > > opinion from the "outside" since I am also involved in the project. > > > > The project team hope for a good discussion and hope to get feedback. > > > > Remark I have added all initial committers to this mail, since not all > > are subscribed to general@. > > > > Please find the complete text below: > > > > On behalf of the Corinthia team > > jan I. > > > > ====== COPY ======= > > ## Proposal > > The goal of Corinthia is to provide a responsive design editor > (converter? > > Or complete program? I suggest just using, “program”, a term used next > > paragraph) as well as a toolkit that enacts a defined conversion > > between different office document formats. Responsive design fits the > > layout as needed, tablet or desktop. The editor is a lightweight > > editor - an extension and not a replacement for the desktop editor. > > > > Many office document programs claim to read/write to the ISO open > > standards for office documents, OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Open > > Office XML (OOXML), but do not document which parts are left > unimplemented. > > Furthermore, the standards have a large number of "implementation > defined" > > parts, making real-world congruence chancy. The Corinthia toolkit > > wants to put this unacknowledged aspect into the open and provide > > "compliance sheets" for document formats, as known from industry > computer protocols. > > > > Corinthia aims at generating a large set of test documents, which can > > be used to verify the "compliance sheets". The code can work as test > > case for other applications (or entities tendering for OOXML/ODF based > > systems) as well. > > > > The base of Corinthia and its toolkit is the library DocFormats, which > > converts between different office document file formats. Currently it > > supports .docx (part of the OOXML specification), HTML, and LaTeX > > (export-only). > > > > The design of DocFormats is based on on the idea of bidirectional > > transformation (BDT), in which a specific document (the original file > > in its source format) is converted into an abstract document (in the > > destination format). A modified version of the abstract document can > > then be used to update the specific document in a non-destructive > > manner, keeping intact all parts of the file which are not supported > > in the abstract format by modifying the original file rather than > replacing it. > > > > Descriptions of BDT can be found in: > > > > Aaron Bohannon, J. Nathan Foster, Benjamin C. Pierce et. al. Boomerang: > > Resourceful Lenses for String Data. Technical Report MS-CIS-07-15 > > Department of Computer and Information Science University of > Pennsylvania. > > November 2007. [boomerang.pdf]( > > http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/boomerang.pdf) > > > > Benjamin Pierce. Foundations for Bidirectional Programming. ICMT2009 - > > International Conference on Model Transformation. June 2009. > > [icmt-2009-slides.pdf]( > > http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/icmt-2009-slides.pdf) > > > > The short term goal of the project is to have an easy-to-integrate > > library that any application can use to embed support for a range of > > different file formats, and use the parsing, serialisation, and > > conversion facilities for various purposes. These include editors, > > batch conversion tools, web publishing systems, document analysis > > tools, and content management systems. By abstracting over different > > file formats and using HTML as a common intermediate format, one can > > just code an application to that end, and let DocFormats take care of > conversion to other formats. > > > > The medium term goal of the project is to have a series of end-user > > applications (separate from the library itself), including an editor > > and file conversion tool. These will serve as examples of how the > > libraries can be used. > > > > And ultimately to have a touch based UI for office documents. > > > > It is also a goal to cooperate with other open source projects, in > > terms of getting input from them as well as providing APIs for their use. > > Corinthia is meant to be easy to understand and work with, making it > > more approachable for a range of projects. > > > > ## Background > > DocFormats has been shipping as part of UX Write on the iOS app store > > since February 2013. From this perspective, it is a stable, mature > > library that works for the most commonly-used features of .docx > > formats. As an open source project, it is completely new, and from > > this perspective is very much in its early stages. We are currently > > exploring the best way to leverage the existing work that has been > > done to make it easier to integrate in other projects, as well as > support more file formats. > > > > ## Rationale > > Apache's mission to produce software for the public good, fits with > > Corinthia's idea of providing an editor and thoroughly documented > > conversion of office documents, thereby hopefully show that > > implementations can and should be documented especially where the > > standards offer options, which will help to ensure interoperability. > > > > We strongly believe the project has potential to grow by cooperating > > with other projects and offers something mature projects cannot offer, > > a chance to take advantage of new architectures and design > > philosophies, as well as also to learn from, and not just reproduce, > history. > > > > We have found that Apache committers are loyal to Apache, and more > > likely to take part in Corinthia.incubator than Corinthia.GitHub. > > > > > > ## Initial Goals > > The initial and most important goal is to enlarge the community > > consisting of developers, testers, and people who know the standards in > depth. > > > > Technically there are four goals: > > - Cleanup core, to make it easy to add filters (format converters) > > - Complete the ODF filter > > - Add spreadsheeet/drawing formats to the ODF and OOXML filters > > - Produce an editor based on JavaScript & HTML which can be embedded > > in mobile apps or used in a Web browser > > > > Our initial goals might not be big visions, but we prefer something > > reachable, and then make bigger goals as we grow. > > > > ## Current Status > > ### Meritocracy > > Some of the initial committers are already part of Apache, and those > > who are not are getting used to working "the Apache way". > > > > ### Community > > Our community could be larger, and committers from AOO and others have > > shown interest in the project, but we have preferred to stay a stable, > > but very active group until we are part of Incubator. > > > > Apache/Incubator provides a lot of tools (e.g., mailing lists) and > > community practices—The Apache Way--that enable community engagement > > and growth. > > > > ### Core Developers > > Peter Kelly, [email protected]<br> Jan Iversen, ASF > > member++<br> Svante Schubert, ASF committer > > > > Remark: Louis and Dorte do not develop, but help with non-coding tasks. > > (Note: Louis is a committer with AOO. Does that matter? Also, I do > > know my ODF, but not as much as Svante, of course.) > > > > ### Alignment > > Corinthia has commonalities with AOO, but is not competing. AOO is a > > desktop product and Corinthia is a lightweight editor and a developer > > product (library). > > > > Corinthia has a document API like POI, but the focus is different. > > Corinthia targets a conversion library and an editor. POI is a handling > API. > > > > Sharing test documents with projects like AOO and POI seems to make a > > lot of sense. > > > > ## Known Risks > > The biggest risk Corinthia faces is failing to attract a larger > > community (not only developers but also testers and documenters). A > > number of actions has already been taken to minimize the risk: > > - Contact to student projects (in particular Capstone) > > - Talks at ApacheConEU > > > > The project uses existing technologies, so there are no real > > technological risks. > > > > There is of course a risk that nobody wants to use the project, but > > the fun building the community and project make this risk bearable. > > > > ### Orphaned products > > None > > > > ### Inexperience with Open Source > > All initial committers have worked several years with open source. > > > > ### Homogenous Developers > > The initial committers are geographically distributed across the world. > > Half of the initial developers are experienced Apache committers and > > all have experience in working in distributed development communities. > > > > The original source has already been partly refactored by other > > developers to make sure knowledge is spread among multiple people. > > > > ### Reliance on Salaried Developers > > No committers are being paid to participate. > > > > However, it should be mentioned the Peter Kelly and Louis Suarez-Potts > > have a company that has added a commercial editor for iPhone on top of > > the library. The issue has been discussed. > > > > ### Relationships with Other Apache Products Corinthia has/will have a > > relation to at least the following projects: > > - **AOO**, core developers have been told on dev@ that for targeting > > mobile platforms, a rewrite of AOO would be better than building on > > top of the existing sources. It is our hope to have long and > > beneficial interaction with AOO. > > - **Httpd**, we would like to make a module that on the fly presents > > odf/ooxml documents as pure html. > > - **POI**, Corinthia library is similar to POI, but simpler, more > > generic, and written in C. We hope to be able to share know-how as > > well as test cases. > > > > Corinthia is based on document standards which are used by numerous > > high-profile projects. We would like to cooperate with the projects to > > exchange knowledge. > > > > ## Documentation > > The current documentation can be found at [github]( > > https://github.com/uxproductivity/Corinthia/wiki)<br> > > The project is aware that this is work in progress and there is > > special attention on this task. > > > > ## Initial Source > > The initial source was closed-source developed solely by Peter Kelly. > > The source has moved to GitHub as Open Source and all files changed to > > ASLv2 to signal the grant. > > > > Remark, the source was part of the UX Write product. The editor of UX > > Write is currently not part of the grant. > > > > ## Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan Source code will > > be moved from the GitHub uxproductivity organisation space to the > > Apache space as defined by incubator.<br> Peter Kelly will grant the > > repo to ASF. > > > > ## External Dependencies > > The current source includes 2 third party libraries (see > > [DocFormats/3rdparty]( > > https://github.com/uxproductivity/DocFormats/tree/master/DocFormats/3r > > dparty)) to which minor modifications have been made. > > - **minizip**, a layer on top of zlib > > - **w3c-tidy-html5**, a html5 manipulation lib. > > > > Remark, currently the changes made to the original sources are > > undocumented. The plan is to have the 1-1 sources in the repo (or have > > users download it), and then apply a patch. > > > > Furthermore, Corinthia depends on > > - libxml2 > > - zlib > > - SDL > > > > ## Cryptography > > Corinthia does not use cryptography nor are there plans to use it.<br> > > In the medium term we would like to use digital signing of the > > convenience binaries. > > > > ## Required Resources > > ### Mailing lists > > We would like to have: > > > > [email protected] for general discussions<br> > > [email protected] for private discussions > > > > ### Subversion Directory > > We prefer not to use SVN. > > > > ### Git Repository > > Our current git repository is [github]( > > https://github.com/uxproductivity/Corinthia). > > > > We would like the repo to be moved to the github apache organisation > > under the name "corinthia" or "corinthia.incubator" > > > > ### Issue Tracking > > We are currently using github issues, which works fine, but would like > > to change to Jira. > > > > ### Other Resources > > - Wiki: We are currently using github wiki, we would like to move to > > an Apache supported wiki (preferable mediawiki), before our > > documentations gets too complicated to move. > > > > - Buildbot: We would like to be able to build/test on OSX, Windows and > > Ubuntu. > > > > - Web: We would like, if possible, to have the home page > > corinthia.incubator.apache.org (just raw html please). > > > > - Blog: We would like, to have a blog, preferable wordpress. > > > > > > ## Initial Committers > > Our initial list of committers is not as long as we would have liked > > it to be, but have not pushed for a larger community before becoming > part of ASF. > > > > Dorte Fjalland, [email protected] (ICLA mailed)<br> Jan Iversen, > > [email protected] (ASF member++)<br> Louis Suárez-Potts, > > [email protected] (AOO PMC)<br> Peter Kelly, [email protected] > > (ICLA mailed)<br> Svante Schubert, [email protected] (AOO > > committer) > > > > ## Affiliations > > None > > > > ## Sponsors > > ### Champion > > Jan Iversen > > > > ### Nominated Mentors > > Jan Iversen. > > > > Since jan is involved in the project, it would be beneficial to have > > at least a second mentor with a "outside" view, who can help focus on > > the administrative logistics. > > > > ### Sponsoring Entity > > Incubator IPMC. > > > > > > ====== > > >
