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Rick Jelliffe wrote: > Actually, the current implementation works by renaming the instance, > not the schema. The same DSRL script could be used to rename schemas, > but I don't know that anyone has done this. You did this @: http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2008/06/a_dsrl_script_for_mapping_from.html and didn't do any illustration about instance. A blob in your blog? > There is an idea floating from certain ODF-ers around that UOF exists > because of what are called "political reasons". I think it is more > than that: UOF meets certain objective Chinese technical requirements. > I hope these can be added to ODF (and to OOXML too). But getting an > awareness of these issues is the first step. Sun's Scott McNealy > called for a merger of ODF and UOF, so there is certainly good talk; > Novel (IIRC) have added grid layout support to OpenOffice, so there is > some action there, but not much. I think you brought up a mix of interesting and very related issues whose answers, if any, are never going to be quite as straight forward as a one-liner. Ultimately, it would be the users who decide whether a standard is useful. The fact that major supporters and head-honchos of existing ISO standards are paying attention and trying to influence its growth path reflects the potential effect UOF has on the community of developers, users and market. Those who are already "there" in ISO's camp would point to the potentially vast overlap of specifications UOF has and hint at its redundancy. But as you pointed out, specific technical needs by the Chinese people which do not so much as to affect other users would be less likely accepted by those who are "there", thus frustrating the Chinese and pleasing no one. On the other hand, with UOF, the Chinese has the ability to decide the necessary technicalities applicable to their usage. It may be just word editing/presentation for now as a start, but could potentially be expanded in future to useful things that electronically reflect Chinese culture. That's just my guess, but the point is that Chinese could then decide on the things relevant to them, instead of having to convince the other 80% of world population about why Chinese needs certain technical features and why all users must accept those same features even though it implies more cost (of development, training, delay, etc) with no visible gain to them. > So I would reverse the question: rather than saying "UOF exists > because of politicial reasons" (or unco-operativeness) perhaps we > should ask "Why hasn't there been effective Chinese involvement in the > ODF process in its core formative days?" Part of the reason must be > language. (And there are many others, opportunities, contacts, > scheduling, perceived benefit). One could hurl many negatives based on subjective inclinations, but the arguments become very weak and do not stand up well because there is no proof and no consensus. What does it really mean if a standard proposal is developed "without political reasons"? ODF? If ODF is so useful, it doesn't have to seek ISO's recognition but through sheer openness, free-of-charge and word-of-mouth, it would become the de facto. OOXML? It's a fact that it is already a dominant standard whether or not it has ISO status. So these are non-politically motivated? You may be right in asking the reverse question. However, I think it's good for historical study on standards development rather than forging ahead. Now that there is a well-primed candidate UOF, we should be looking at how to help make UOF accepted as an ISO standard, such as fast-tracking and receiving ISO status in record time. (deja vu?) ISO has certainly had a practice on that already, so it should be do-able. > But who would use a format in simplified Chinese? The PRC. Singapore > also uses simplified characters, but it is multilingual, and you would > expect English-language names to be more practical. Taiwan treasures > its use of traditional characters somewhat, so I expect there would be > mixed feelings about UOF. HK: who knows? So a standard that is only > usable by PRC mainland, HK and Taiwan will have problems getting > positive votes from other National Bodies: No, that's not the way I would look at it. If you're talking about the specification document itself being in simplified Chinese and non-Chinese-speaking developers cannot read them, it is a non-issue. If a Chinese literature as cryptic as the Art of War gets translated multiple times into English and other languages just by its sheer content value, translation of the UOF specification is not going to be the main problem if UOF is important enough to be understood by non-Chinese-speaking users. The UOF spec, in its present form, might be in simplified Chinese due to the need by many Chinese standards participants. There's no saying that it cannot be translated into English and/or other languages. Singapore's usage of Mandarin, electronically, socially and officially, follows those of China. Singapore's choice is for practical and proper reasons such as trade, culture, history, etc. Linguistically, China defines the Chinese language. So it makes sense that if China adopts UOF, Singapore is likely to follow. And no, you can't say English-language names are more practical for Singapore, because Mandarin is an official language in the country. Usage of Mandarin in other Chinese cities take cue from China. If UOF becomes China's standard, we can expect its influence on other Chinese-speaking cities. Note that I'm talking about the format usage, not the translation of UOF as this is not an issue as per what I described above. > consider that OOXML only got in because of its market dominance, > overcoming the general desire not to multiply standards. Good point. ISO has proven by action that its objective is not to "not multiply standards". Furthermore, a standards body's objective cannot be such as to seek "not to multiply standard", for otherwise who would allow a subset of a richer, more descriptive language to be extracted as a separate standard? Yes, I'm talking about XML from SGML. > Usually, I would say it would be more realistic to expect that UOF's > Chinese requirements would get added to ODF. However, the plans for > ODF 1.3 (or ODF 2.0) have not been made yet, so that could well be 4 > or 5 years in the future. Seeking to address user community requirements would be more relevant than an all-inclusive ODF. Let UOF become the ISO definitive for all electronic representation of Chinese cultural and linguistic content, and let ODF seek its open source objectives. Tweaking next generation of ODF to include requirements from China (and not other countries) and in the process ironing out the relevance of UOF more and more is simply diluting ODF's focus and killing China's well-mannered effort in UOF serves no useful purpose to anybody. > Until then, I think it would be very productive for a translation of > UOF to made into an ISO Technical Report: this is less than a standard > (and could lead the way to becoming an international standard), it > gets the information out there, will be less contentious than a full > standards process, and can be done fairly quickly. I think that would > be really useful: there is almost no material on UOF in English. I am > told a lot of it is based on an early fork of ODF, so probably much > of the ODF material could be re-used, which might help translators! Translation of UOF to other languages so more people could understand it, yes, I think it's a good call. But awarding it a second prize as a "goodwill gesture" of not awarding it the official status it deserves is not needed, because as I said, ISO has proven its capability to fast track 6,000+ pages of content which apparently proposes to duplicate an ISO specification. UOF is a deserving and serious candidate. Let it mature, and then let the community of users and developers decide. regards, Chin Chee-Kai
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