[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Interoperability
From: "James Clark" <jjc@j...> > OpenOffice is also using ZIP as a packaging format for XML. See > > http://xml.openoffice.org/faq.html#4 Also see http://xml.openoffice.org/package.html But the Open Office package format is concerned with packaging documents, which I would avoid like the plague. > I think a ZIP-based packaging format makes a lot of sense, but getting all > the details right is non-trivial. An OASIS TC would be a natural place to > standardize this given the overlap with entity resolution catalogs. Yes, and there is already an OASIS group on Entity Resolution which is a related area. I am interested in knowing what issues people think are important here: as the simplest case, would merely saying "Just stick files with well-known extensions in a ZIP file with certain naming conventions to handle versioning" actually be all we need for a workable approach (i.e., if toolmakers would all support looking into ZIP files for DTDs and related resources)? But even if there is an OASIS group that specs it, would vendors get on board? Or would it expose that while they are happy to have document exchange using XML being flexible, but not so happy if it is easy to change applications (and therefore to change products)? Actually, I don't believe that XML tools-vendors are at all happy that setting up applications can be such a major task, nor that they can be difficult to maintain (i.e. with XML one gets a lot of flexibility in the different products we can connect together, but once we have done the work to connect them it is still a big thing to change or update them.) But they would not be expected to move in this area until there is a level of user demand or until they reach the stage in their business where deployability and maintainability become important selling issues. The more that XML products are easy to configure and update, the more that they can be successful on the desktop as well as the back-end. Cheers Rick Jelliffe (For the equity angle on this, perhaps we can ask the question "How can we move XML away from being a tool of the large corporates and toward being something useful for encouraging a technical middle class in poorer countries who can integrate systems for local businesses?" Unless there is an XML application deployment solution for dummies, to some extent XML is part of the problem. Horrifically that makes the Microsoft approach of encouraging integrators part of the solution, but there we go. )
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