ODFauthors

Hi :slight_smile:

ODFauthors only cover LibreOffice and OpenOffice but there name suggests they
might expand to cover other projects? Did they used to be 1 section of the
OpenOffice Community? or where they always separate?

TDF's steering committee are talking about paying for membership to Oasis and i
have been wondering if it would be appropriate to ask TDF's SC if they could get
a reduced rate for ODFauthors, or include them in the same fee or should we ask
TDF's SC and Apache to each put forwards half the costs for ODFauthors? I
imagine that it might be difficult for ODFauthors to raise the funding required
to join so i was wondering how much support we could or should offer.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Tom,

I am not clear what the question is.

If ODFAuthors is not a genuine organization, I don't think there is any way for it to join OASIS.

The easiest path would be for interested individuals from ODFAuthors to become TDF Members and be associated to whatever degree OASIS/TDF require to offer them as participants on OASIS Technical Committees.

I can't speak for the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), but I suspect they have no need to support participation on OASIS. That is to say, I would be surprised to learn that they are an institutional member or see any need to become one. Perhaps that will change as the incubator process is completed for OpenOffice.org, but I think it is outside the lines with regard to how Apache operates. I can't imagine them funding a third-party to go play at OASIS under any conditions. That's completely outside the box, it seems to me.

- Dennis

PS: The last time I checked, ODFAuthors was about ODF in name only.
PPS: I just checked on the OASIS site. ASF is not a member of OASIS at any level.

The ODFAuthors website can be used by anyone or any group that is
producing documentation for any product that supports the OpenDocument
Format. We'd love to have it expand beyond the existing two products.

The original group (and their website) was known as "OOoAuthors"; it was
set up by some members of the OpenOffice.org community to produce user
guides for OOo. It has always been autonomous, although the user guides
eventually were adopted as "official" OOo documentation.

Possibly relevant information: because ODFAuthors as an organisation has
no legal standing, its finances are handled by an incorporated
Australian not-for-profit association called Friends of OpenDocument,
Inc. The domain name is now owned by TDF, which hosts the website.

I personally don't see any reason why ODFAuthors should be involved with
OASIS; we are documenters, not coders. Any interested individuals who
happen to be involved with ODFAuthors should also be involved with other
groups that are more relevant.

--Jean

I want to erase a misconception. OASIS is a standards development organization. Their work products are specifications, not code. The closest to code are schemas (in Relax NG in the case of ODF) for the XML structures that carry the ODF document representation.

The specifications do require expertise, but the intention is that someone "skilled in the art" could independently produce a conforming implementation without having to look at any code of an implementation. (That's the ideal; I think it is safe to say that the ODF specification is still a bit immature in that respect. It will improve over time.)

Programmers might or might not be inclined to do what it takes to digest one of these applications and provide QA and clarifying text improvements. Fewer seem inclined to engage in the task of creating such specifications.

While the first-line of users are adopters of specifications in implementations, it is desirable to have participation of others, just as it is important at Apache and TDF. It is just that the bug reports are not about implementations, but questions and comments on a specification.

People here who participate in the OASIS OpenDocument TC include Regina Henschel, who has been diligent in reviewing and questioning definitions of spreadsheet functions in ODF, and Thorsten Behrens, who does bring a strong implementer perspective. Charles Schulz of TDF is on the OASIS Board. There may be others but I've recognized these three in recent contributions on this list.

- Dennis

PS: I'll wager that the ODF specifications themselves have not been a topic of discussion among ODFAuthors. I'd be delighted if they were, though there is a distance from what the format is and users experience of software that supports the format.

Dennis, thanks for the clarification. I tend to use the word "code" as
shorthand for a whole cluster of things that are more technical than I
ever get involved in.

I did know that OASIS is about standards, not implementation code, but
IMO few if any people who aren't into code in some form (e.g. macros in
depth) would get involved in standards for a format.

--Jean

I agree with jean here!

The only time I poked around the specification was while trying to determine if the format supported multiple instances of a specific type of index or TOC (turns out ODF does NOT support it, which means that no program supporting ODF can support it).

no legal standing,

FWIW, Under US Law, ODFAuthors is an unincorporated non profit
organization. A separate legal entity from _Friends of Open Document,
Inc_.

Precisely what rights that gives it, depends upon the state in which it
does business.

jonathon

Hmm, interesting. What constitutes "doing business" in a state? Or in
the USA? Although a few contributors live in the USA, most of ODFAuthors
membership, and the server on which its website is hosted, are located
outside the USA.

--Jean

Possibly relevant information: because ODFAuthors as an organisation has

no legal standing,

FWIW, Under US Law, ODFAuthors is an unincorporated non profit
organization. A separate legal entity from _Friends of Open Document,
Inc_.

Precisely what rights that gives it, depends upon the state in which it
does business.

Hmm, interesting. What constitutes "doing business" in a state? Or in
the USA?

I can only guess..... Probably things such as selling a book. Apart from that, probably not much.

Although a few contributors live in the USA, most of ODFAuthors
membership, and the server on which its website is hosted, are located
outside the USA.

Because I live in the USA, I am bound by the laws of the USA when I post... You know, so if I knew things that the USA did not allow out of the country, I could not post them. I think that cryptography used to be an example, not sure if it still is.

>>
>>> Possibly relevant information: because ODFAuthors as an organisation has
>> no legal standing,
>>
>> FWIW, Under US Law, ODFAuthors is an unincorporated non profit
>> organization. A separate legal entity from _Friends of Open Document,
>> Inc_.
>>
>> Precisely what rights that gives it, depends upon the state in which it
>> does business.
>
> Hmm, interesting. What constitutes "doing business" in a state? Or in
> the USA?

I can only guess..... Probably things such as selling a book. Apart
from that, probably not much.

> Although a few contributors live in the USA, most of ODFAuthors
> membership, and the server on which its website is hosted, are located
> outside the USA.
Because I live in the USA, I am bound by the laws of the USA when I
post... You know, so if I knew things that the USA did not allow out of
the country, I could not post them. I think that cryptography used to be
an example, not sure if it still is.

Some of the export rules have been relaxed on cryptography, but I do not
know the current rules.

On area we Yanks can get into trouble is with software patents and
copyrights. It is a problem with audio and video codecs and whether you
can legally download some you might find on the web. I have seen this
warning with several non-US Linux distros.

Hmm, interesting. What constitutes "doing business" in a state?

That literally depends upon the state.

It can range from attendance at a trade show, to having an office with
employees, a bank account, and an in-state telephone.

most of ODFAuthors membership, and the server on which its website is

hosted, are located outside the USA.

That might not make any difference.

jonathon

AFAIK, anyone who attends trade shows does so as an individual, or on
behalf of some other group, not ODFAuthors. The group (not really an
organisation) has no office, no bank accounts in the USA, no
telephones, nothing... though individual members might.

To Andrew P: Similar comment. Anything you post is done as an
individual, surely?

And book sales are done by Friends of OpenDocument, the publisher (an
Australian organisation, with its bank account and Paypal account in
Australia), not the ODFAuthors team. Friends of has an account with
Lulu.com; ODFAuthors does not. If an individual buys a book from
Friends of and then resells that book, that's still nothing to do with
ODFAuthors "doing business", and more than if someone buys a book from
any other publisher and resells that book.

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Most of my questions about this have been answered already, thanks :slight_smile:

TDF is likely to spend the money required to become a member of Oasis. It would
seem that it would be dumb not to. My questions were to gauge how tightly
integrated ODFauthors is with TDF and whether it might be appropriate to help
them gain membership, perhaps at a reduced rate or as part of TDF.

All the answers in this thread indicate that there wouldn't be much point and
that ODFauthors could pursue this separately if there was any point.

The gravitas of an organisation can increase when it can show that it is members
of or supported by or just working with other relevant organisations. Almost
like a quality mark. But it sounds as though that would be the only benefit to
ODFauthors and for the price-tag it wouldn't be worth it.

I've learned a lot about ODFauthors and it's all good :slight_smile:
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Yeah, many rules have changed, it is difficult to stay current.

Hmm, interesting. What constitutes "doing business" in a state?

That literally depends upon the state.

It can range from attendance at a trade show, to having an office with
employees, a bank account, and an in-state telephone.

most of ODFAuthors membership, and the server on which its website is

hosted, are located outside the USA.

That might not make any difference.

AFAIK, anyone who attends trade shows does so as an individual, or on
behalf of some other group, not ODFAuthors. The group (not really an
organisation) has no office, no bank accounts in the USA, no
telephones, nothing... though individual members might.

To Andrew P: Similar comment. Anything you post is done as an
individual, surely?

You are correct Jean, and I certainly did not mean to imply otherwise. It is more a comment on what I must do. I posted an update to a public domain C++ cryptography library, and I had to be very careful about what I posted in that area. Certainly the group would have no likely problems because of it, but I had to be careful that I would not. Note that I was careful even though my contribution was only to make the list of names for the supported methods public. In other words, not even remotely related to cryptography.

And book sales are done by Friends of OpenDocument, the publisher (an
Australian organisation, with its bank account and Paypal account in
Australia), not the ODFAuthors team. Friends of has an account with
Lulu.com; ODFAuthors does not. If an individual buys a book from
Friends of and then resells that book, that's still nothing to do with
ODFAuthors "doing business", and more than if someone buys a book from
any other publisher and resells that book

This too should highly insulate the organization outside of Australia. You might be fresh meat inside of Australia (by the way) :slight_smile: