Cesare Leonardi wrote:
The question is: why using the extended version by default?
Hi Cesare, well, because we'd otherwise need to stop developing new features (which have somewhat of an 2/3rd probability of affecting the file format). ODF 1.1 was approved more than four years ago, and 1.2 is still not done - this is something that just won't fly. LibO uses ODF as its native file format, so there's really no other way to save new features. Moreover, OASIS actually asks people to implement, before standardizing - a smart move IMO, since it prevents design-by-committee.
What if ODF1.2 extended will never be ratified? There is someone who is pushing for it?
People from LibO, IBM and OOo are pushing for that. Of course, there's always a certain chance that during standardization, a specific proposal will be changed. Still, doing it like that is the best compromise, given the contraints - and given an ODF that is not designed for providing smart fallbacks.
Shouldn't the feature that relies upon ODF1.2+ relegated under "experimental feature" or something like that?
Not if you ask me. But of course it's the sole discretion of every user / admin of a LibO installation, to enable the "Save as ODF1.0/1.1" option.
And what does ODF 1.2 extended mean? Is the extended version of OOo3.0.0 equals to OOo3.3.0? Or, since it is an in-progress standard, they differ in some aspect? In other words, can OOo3.0.0 read a document produced by OOo3.3.0? The "extended" terms doesn't guaranteed this. I'm not a developer and i have to google around to be sure to have no surprise in mixed environment.
ODF 1.2 extended is indeed a moving target. If you want to avoid surprises in a mixed environment - either strictly limit the way users can generate documents (i.e. prevent macros, funny fonts, "formatting by spaces" etc), or use exactly one version of exactly one program (we happily recommend LibO, of course). :) I'd venture a guess that every sufficiently complicated standard suffers from similar issues - c.f. my (and others) experience with UMTS, being not-so-very-interoperable between carriers ... HTH, -- Thorsten
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