The future of "Transitional": Japanese concern

[Francis Cave]

All

The agreed UK position is that the purpose of the Transitional conformance class and features, as specified in Part 4, is to provide faithful representation of legacy documents. If the old versions of Microsoft Office and other systems that were used to produce these legacy documents were unable to format text in all languages correctly (which is hardly surprising, by the way), Part 4 should enable us to represent those documents faithfully INCLUDING all typographic lacunae. In other words, if a typographic feature was missing and could not be expressed in a legacy document, it would be wrong to try to rewrite history by enhancing Part 4 and thereby "correcting" the presentation of old documents.

If one wishes to present an old document with different formatting, for which one needs to store additional typographic parameters, one needs to create a new document, and to suggest that it is the same document as before is wrong. It is potentially misleading, since the errors in the original presentation will have been important in determining how the document used to be read and interpreted, and any correction of the presentation will lead, both in theory and in practice, to a new interpretation that will be different from the earlier interpretation. Typography doesn't simply improve the efficiency or aesthetics of communication, it affects the meaning, and that is, I believe, true in all languages.

I am sure that the UK would enthusiastically support the enhancement of S with new features to improve document typography for all languages and scripts. I am equally sure that, without some more convincing argument, we would oppose the inclusion of such features in T, which would go against our view as to the intended purpose of T.

Francis Cave



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Innovimax SARL [mailto:innovimax at gmail.com]
> Sent: 18 November 2009 16:20
> To: Shawn Villaron
> Cc: MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given); SC 34 WG4
> Subject: Re: The future of "Transitional": Japanese concern
> 
> Again, I was answering to Murata san pointing to MS Office (which is
> Microsoft implementation, mind you)
> The second point is that I agree with considering adding what we can
> in STRICT part
> The third one is to find a document that exists (which we could agree
> to call LEGACY Document) that is not handled correctly by
> Transitionnal ; then we will have the ability to discuss whether or
> not we also need to consider that point for Transitionnal
> 
> Again, that's a very open proposal in order to keep the spirits for
> what many NBs changed their vote for OOXML
> 
> Mohamed
> 
> 
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Shawn Villaron <shawnv at microsoft.com>
> wrote:
> > While I do agree that it is up to implementers -- not just Microsoft,
> mind you -- to determine which conformance class to support ( based on
> business case, customer feedback, suitability of technology, enabling
> interop, etc. ), I do think it's important for the standards community
> to work with national bodies such as Japan to address short comings in
> the current version of the standard as it relates to their language and
> cultural requirements.  I'm not sure that we should exclude changes to
> Transitional as that seems rather arbitrary at this point, and puts
> national bodies like Japan in a tough spot.
> >
> > I'd like us to keep an open mind here and discuss Murata-san's
> proposal.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Innovimax SARL [mailto:innovimax at gmail.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 7:56 AM
> > To: MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given)
> > Cc: SC 34 WG4
> > Subject: Re: The future of "Transitional": Japanese concern
> >
> > Murata San,
> >
> > On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 1:57 PM, MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given) <eb2m-
> mrt at asahi-net.or.jp> wrote:
> >> (Again, wearing my Japanese hat)
> >> MS Office and OOXML come from Western culture.  Although we are
> aware
> >> that a lot of attempts has been made for I18N, some languages and
> >> cultures might not be well supported yet.  We request WG4 to
> seriously
> >> consider requirements from all languages and cultures and make a
> fair
> >> decision.
> >
> > Coming originally me too from a non Western culture, I'm sympathetic
> to your proposal and more than that :
> > * I support and thinks that France should support this FOR STRICT
> > * I propose that you talk to the implementers (which are not national
> > bodies) for the rest of your point ; If Microsoft do not implement
> STRICT, it is Microsoft problem, not SC 34 (since we already heard this
> sentence very very often)
> >
> > Then can you point us to document that exists and contains such
> information and for which such information is not kept ?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Mohamed
> >
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> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Innovimax SARL
> Consulting, Training & XML Development
> 9, impasse des Orteaux
> 75020 Paris
> Tel : +33 9 52 475787
> Fax : +33 1 4356 1746
> http://www.innovimax.fr
> RCS Paris 488.018.631
> SARL au capital de 10.000 €