[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Common Word Processing Format
The Commonwealth policy is a procurement policy. It may have broad goals but it comes down to choosing a word processing format. The problem is not having a good scoped definition for requirements met by word processing formats. If one tries that, the discussion gets complex quickly. If one moves the goal from being pick one of the available to create a common core we have a different set of issues. If one believes there is a common core what is the best action? a) Pick the format that represents that common core best (eg, it is claimed that Open Office is cleaner XML) b) Pick the format that is most ubiquitously installed today (MS Office is most widely installed. That is not true of MS OfficeXML but neither is it true of Open Office). c) Pick the format used by the most people at the best cost Given b, neither candidate meets this requirement. XHTML may meet this requirement today and all of the tools needed are available. Cost is an issue. If it is a policy designed to open the market to competition, it is a much easier decision. On the other hand, now it becomes a local debate about local goals that policy furthers. The Commonwealth will/is debating whether IT shops can create policy that is properly legislative authority. That is a much stickier problem. Can't be solved here. Should be understood though. I like what the IT shops have done because my personal values are such that I think well-informed experts should stand up and tell the citizenry when their best interests are jeopardized. That takes balls. That is what shared values are all about. I applaud that. I also know it is risky, political, ruins careers, and outs the chimp behavior among the Pan species. That is why values are so valued: they come with risks and costs too but if one doesn't stand for something, one not only has no values, one is of no value. See Marley's Ghost. If we are now debating the best format for word processing without regard to cost or procurement policy goals, we are in your debate and I agree: 1. I have to decide what I am doing with the markup and if I want clear labeling or presentational markup. 2. I have to pick the presentational markup and decide which is most easily targeted given a clearly labeled structure. Notice, *I*. I completely agree with you there, but I am not the admin down the hall who prepares hundreds of documents a month and even if she or he could code for XML, they don't have the time to learn it or do it. So far, no problem. We have all of the tools to do any of that and more coming every day. This is about picking the right ones for the right jobs for a cycle. len From: Uche Ogbuji [mailto:uche.ogbuji@f...] On Fri, 2005-12-02 at 10:55 -0500, Robert Koberg wrote: > Say you are in charge of your states IT budget, how do you present > your structure above to your citizens/vendors/buearocrats? Do you present > your structure above as an MSOffice or OOWrite document? Len Bullard had a similar reply, but as I read the thread, the discussion had broadened from the needs of one state to Office Format best practice in general. If you still meant the discussion in narrow context, I don't think that was clear, and thus my reaction. I certainly don't deign to tell MA how to write technology policy. I haven't analyzed their problem domain. I was on the OO XML OASIS WG for a few moths at the beginning, and the final product is not radically different from what we started with. I have not really seen much of the new Office XML. > Given that you can't do what you want in OOWrite and only painfully and > with a bad UI in MSWord, why are you celebrating those formats? Can't do what I want? I don't follow.
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