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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Hi Jesper,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Not a very pleasant prospect. I
can see the reasoning, but not something that would be acceptable in a product
release in my house, so to speak.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>Obviously the strict namespace
does need to change. For data integrity purposes, I think there is also a very
good case for the transitional namespace to change.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>The issue I am focused on is the
date issue, as you already know.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'>In a previous document, N1194
you mention the impacts:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><span style='color:#1F497D'>“</span>Attempting
to open an ISO/IEC 29500 transitional document in an application that only
understands ECMA 376 1<span style='font-size:7.0pt'>st </span>Ed. will depend
on whether the transitional document uses any of the new<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'>syntax (e.g. ISO 8601 dates,
comments in spreadsheets, bitmasks or object embedding) added at the BRM.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><span style='font-family:CourierNewPSMT'>o
</span>If the transitional document uses the new syntax, behaviour will be
application defined. ISO 8601 dates will be corrupted in MS Office and
OpenOffice.org as described above (an application<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>bug). Most documents will most likely be opened with no
errors.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The problem is that anyone implementing transitional would
certainly implement ISO 8601 dates in spreadsheets, going from the intent of
the spec, which uses an ISO 8601 date as an example. The fact that there is
now an attribute to indicate ISO8601 dates does not really help ‘legacy’
apps. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In 18.17.4.1 – “All date values stored in cells
within a SpreadsheetML file are stored in the ISO 8601 format.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Would you implement writing a serial date by default going
off the spec? No. We can assume that going forward, all dates in transitional and
strict files will be ISO 8601. Maybe some apps will roundtrip the existing
data, so there won’t be an acceleration of existing documents being
silently updated, but we can assume all new instances will write ISO 8601.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I contend that a reasonable proportion of spreadsheets
contain dates. Most reporting and analysis has a date element – even if
that is just shown as a month, quarter etc using a formatting mask. It will
still be a date. I also disagree that the problem lies with the apps – they
are working absolutely to the spec as it was designed at the time – the semantic
meaning of the string element involved was a serial date number. The change
made at the BRM was not well thought out. One could say that the spec caused
the problem, it is it’s duty to solve it. This approach leaves it
utterly on the shoulders of implementers (and indeed users – via updates/patch
management) to fix it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Of course, all this would be moot if there was a mechanism to
determine versions of documents instances back in ECMA376-1, but there wasn’t.
As I might have mentioned before, Office 2007 implemented the change in specs
with a namespace change during the beta, so we, as probably others, reasonably
assumed that the lack of any other versioning strategy implied a namespace
change would be the future mechanism.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>If we don’t change the transitional namespace, then
there will be a big education job with customers and implementers to ensure
that they retrofit existing apps to safely consume the “ISO”
version of Open XML files. That will not give either of these parties a good
feeling. “Don’t use anything that produces ISO Open XML until all
your software is patched” does not have a good ring to it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>On the other hand, I have not heard the all the detailed arguments
for keeping the transitional namespace, so I’ll reserve judgement until
then, as I have not had a lot of time to consider the other side.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A point regarding the proposal adding the new conformance
attributes – what is the reason for not using a version number now? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Gareth<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> Jesper Lund
Stocholm [mailto:jesper.stocholm@ciber.dk] <br>
<b>Sent:</b> 29 April 2009 11:05<br>
<b>To:</b> e-sc34-wg4@ecma-international.org<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [SPAM] DR 08-0012 Discussion document for tele conference on
Thursday about namespace change<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=DA>Hello all,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=DA><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Shawn and I have been busy working on investigating the
impact of changing the namespace and the required changes to the specification.
We have made a draft discussion document (attached to this email) and we will
use this to start the discussion tomorrow. The document contains our draft
response to DR 08-0012 and what we intend to do. Shawn and I will have more
detailed information for you tomorrow during the teleconference.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span
lang=DA>Jesper Lund Stocholm<br>
</span></b><span lang=DA><img width=113 height=57 id="Picture_x0020_1"
src="cid:image001.gif@01C9C8F9.83550990" alt="cid:013131611@18122007-1E12"><br>
<span style='color:gray'>Lautruphøj 1-3<br>
DK-2750 Ballerup<br>
Denmark</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Tlf.: +45 30 94 55 70<br>
Email: <span lang=DA><a href="mailto:jesper.stocholm@ciber.dk"
title="mailto:jesper.stocholm@ciber.dk"><span lang=EN-US>jesper.stocholm@ciber.dk</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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