I missed this before I replied to the public one. That is useful though. Here it is happening again. This is not a defect in the Microsoft Office implementation of ODF 1.1 consumers. (There are plenty of those to go around. This is not one of them.) Creating an "Office Quirks" Save As mode for this case is technically inappropriate and certainly misleading. Why be anxious to this on someone else's implementation? The problem originated in a late introduction into the ODF 1.2 specification.
There is nothing wrong with an ODF 1.1 consumer raising a complaint when it encounters an ODF package that has an unrecognized attribute on the <manifest:manifest>element. An ODF 1.1 consumer cannot be expected to know that ODF 1.2 added such a thing and made it mandatory. To remedy the problem by avoiding use of the mandatory attribute is straightforward and will bother no-one. ODF 1.2 consumers dare not object to the absence of the attribute because it will impeach the documents of their own earlier ODF 1.2 implementations that don't have it. For example, OpenOffice.org 3.3.0-produced and LO 3.3.2-produced documents do not have it. Abstractly, the solution to this particular situation is to (1) never produce that <manifest:manifest> manifest:version attribute or, alternatively, (2) only produce the attribute for documents that absolutely required an ODF 1.2 (or later) consumer to be properly processed and that cannot be successfully consumed as if they are documents of earlier ODF format versions. I suspect that (1) will be the immediate and simplest approach. In all cases, ODF 1.2 consumers need to view the attribute as optional because they can't expect it on existing (so-called) ODF 1.2 documents. - Dennis -----Original Message----- From: Rob Weir [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 05:26 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: OOo, ODF 1.2 extended format and Word: is the possibility to open OOo generated file by word ed as bug? On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 7:27 AM, Rob Weir <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton > <[email protected]> wrote: >> Rob, >> >> I have no idea how get from a catch-22 between ODF 1.2 (latest), ODF 1.2 >> earlier, and down-level ODF 1.1 consumers that are strict about it (like >> Microsoft Word 2007/2010) to this outburst about LibreOffice. There is no >> foundation for that departure into the stratosphere. >> > > I have no wish for the ODF standard, like the US Constitution or the > Bible, being used as an excuse to justify stupidity. ODF is a > specification for document exchange. If you are using it in a way > that decreases interoperability then you really need to step back and > ask yourself if your literal interpretation really makes sense. > Sorry, I meant to send that note to Dennis only. Obviously it is up for each product, proprietary and open source, to determine the optimal trade-off between real-world interoperability and standards purity. If LibreOffice's users are happy with the choices made by the LibreOffice team, and they don't mind that their documents are flagged as "corrupt" in MS Office, then no one is to say they are wrong. However, I think AOO users may benefit from some additional flexibility here. For example, we could have a configuration flag that allows them to switch a "MS Office compatibility mode" on or off. In some cases, such as when they are targeting an ODF-based workflow, strict conformance with the ODF standard will be the overriding concern. In other cases, where they are predominately exchanging documents with MS Office users, compatibility will be more important. I'd be interested in user feedback whether such a configuration option would be useful. -Rob --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
