Standardizing Office Document Conformance Testing

[Doug Mahugh]

Alex,

I think a joint approach makes sense, both for the reason of where subject-matter expertise resides, and also to minimize the additional workload for the WGs.  WG4 members (and WG1 members presumably, for that matter) have quite a bit on their plate right now, and we will need to be pretty focused on the work of processing DRs in the months ahead, but this is a worthwhile area of discussion and planning.  I appreciate you/WG1 offering to take the lead.

Are you thinking in terms of a TR that would guide the work of the project that Fraunhofer FOKUS is leading?

- Doug

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Brown [mailto:alexb at griffinbrown.co.uk] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 8:41 AM
To: SC 34 WG4
Subject: Standardizing Office Document Conformance Testing

Dear all,

Following-up on the discussions about conformance testing of 29500
documents and applications ...

WG 1 is the WG within SC 34 that has been responsible for conformance
testing and validation. So I think it is likely any work in this area
would be assigned to WG 1 by SC 34. However, WG 4 has particular
expertise on the details of the 29500 formats, so I'd like to raise the
idea of such a project being a *joint* activity between WG 4 and WG 1,
with WG 1 leading and WG 4 experts being invited to participate.

The project could be to develop a TR which covers the methodology, tools
and test data necessary to perform 29500 conformance testing at the
document and application levels. It would probably be based on the
layered approach Murata-san has already outlined. There is a precedent
for such TRs being developed within JTC 1.

This assumes of course that:

1. Such a project is proposed, and

2. There is consensus among the various stakeholders that this joint
approach is a sensible way to proceed ...

Thoughts?

- Alex.