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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: [Daniel.Vogelheim@germany.sun.com: Re: [office_standards] Structured file formats / Packaging]
From:       Nicolas Goutte <nicog () snafu ! de>
Date:       2001-08-16 22:05:21
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In my opinion, we should better break KOffice's file formats now, as long 
as there are no (or very few?) other programs that can read or write any of 
the current file formats. Having a common base on ZIP could even ease the 
creation of import/export filters of other programs, because no programmer 
would have to worry anymore about how to handle .tar.gz files but would be 
able to use the support of his own package.

The other problem in delaying is that we would need not only to support 
KOffice 1.1. If we have just a version to support, we could perhaps make a 
back-port and we could offer a KOffice 1.1.1 with ZIP possibility (at least 
at reading.)

Have a  nice day/evening/night!

On Thursday, 16. August 2001 10:38, Thomas Zander wrote:
> Hi, I have been communicating with Openoffce (ex staroffice) programmer
> since a week now, and basically they want to stick with Zip (alias jar)
> file format for speed.
>
> As I don't see myself making the desicion to change the packaging format,
> i'd like your input on this..
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Daniel Vogelheim
> <Daniel.Vogelheim@germany.sun.com> -----
>
> Subject: Re: [office_standards] Structured file formats / Packaging
> To: office_standards@openoffice.org
> Mailing-List: contact office_standards-help@openoffice.org; run by ezmlm
> X-No-Archive: yes
>
> Hello Thomas,
>
> > On Mon, Aug 13, 2001 at 07:43:35PM +0200, Martin Gallwey wrote:
> > > Don't know what else to say, except that while ZIP isn't perfect, I
> > > think it's better than the other options.
> >
> > Ok, point made.
> >
> > No problem, pitty that we can't use the same open standards for all
>
> suites ;)
>
> Well, maybe it's not possible. And then, maybe it is. We are not going to
> find out, unless we actually try.
>
> > I just can not start using zip in koffice, my users will not accept the
> > compatibility problems it gives. (Which is why we allready stopped trying
> > to use a tar.bz2 solve)
>
> Yes, (forwards-)compatibility is a big concern. The StarOffice 3.x-5.x
> developers (I wasn't around then) jumped through hoops to support the
> same format across versions. However, for the various formats that we
> have used in the past 15 years, we have repeatedly found advantages that
> are worth switching to a new format for. A standardized packaging
> solution may well be the next one.
>
> Maybe it helps if I explain how this whole thing came to pass:
>
> When doing our new format in XML, we eventually needed an XML packaging
> format. The W3C had already looked at XML packaging, but hasn't
> instantiated a work-group for it, much less one with results. Without a
> standard to use, we had to do our own. After evaluating several choices,
> we decided for ZIP and, among others, against .tar.gz. The decision was
> based on various technical merits which we finally documented on our web
> page.
>
> (...)
>
> So you say we can't use the same standards for all office suites. I'm not
> convinced, because all of us face basically the same problems. There are
> several issues where we have different priorities. For example, KOffice,
> AbiWord and Gnumeric need a way to easily recognize their files, which we
> don't have. We in turn insist that the files should be readable and
> writeable with common tools, which no one else seems to care about. I
> believe those issues can be reconciled. We haven't even gotten to the
> point of collecting all requirements: it's certainly not technical
> problems that hinder us currently. The issue of format compatibility
> certainly shouldn't keep us from *talking* about a common standard.
>
> (...)
>
> > Thomas Zander
>
> zander@earthling.net
>
> (...)
>
> Sincerely,
> Daniel Vogelheim
>(...)
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