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Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:11:56 +0100
Message-ID: <BANLkTi=dxBaLXwH1xU_ZrVWDAJAH8_tSbw@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: ODF Toolkit Incubation Pre-Proposal
From: Ross Gardler <rgardler@opendirective.com>
To: general@incubator.apache.org
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I'm top posting because you've answered most of the immediate issues I
had. I apologise for not having looked deeper and found the activity
you are referring to. I was clearly only looking at top level mailing
lists. Thanks for taking the time to point me in the right direction,
that kenai site is quite confusing (at least when browsing it from a
phone on a train ;-)

Ross


On 27 June 2011 22:09, Rob Weir <apache@robweir.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 4:26 PM, Ross Gardler
> <rgardler@opendirective.com> wrote:
>> Thanks Rob,
>>
>> Looking I've the Kenai site I notice that there is as good as no visible=
 activity within the project. You mention that the "ODF Toolkit Union Steer=
ing Committee" met and approved the idea of this proposal, but this is not =
visible so we don't know what this means.
>>
>
> There is activity. =A0It just is not evenly distributed. =A0For example,
> with the Simple API, we had a release June 1st;
>
> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/simple/pages/ReleaseNotes
>
> (We'll have another release in July)
>
> Forums are dead because the activity occurs on mailing lists, e.g.:
>
> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/simple/lists/dev/archive
>
> Activity on bug reports:
>
> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/simple/lists/issues/archive
>
> Commit logs:
>
> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/simple/lists/commits/archive
>
> User list:
>
> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/simple/lists/users/archive
>
>
>> What interest is there in reviving the project rather than just moving i=
t here. I'm particularly worried that in just a few minutes of browsing the=
 project website I've found a number of people who seem to want to engage w=
ith the project but receive no response. The project seems, for all intents=
 and purposes, to be dead.
>>
>
> We've consistently made monthly releases of the Simple API for almost
> a year now:
>
> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/simple/downloads
>
> I wouldn't call that dead. =A0How many Apache projects have a QA'ed
> release every month?
>
> But that is just the simple API. =A0Other components are more driven by
> the ODF specification. =A0For example, the conformance checking module
> gets revised when the ODF specification is updated, when a new
> Committee Draft is released, with schema changes. =A0So that happens at
> the pace of standards, which is a bit slower.
>
> Overall, we have a mix of pieces actively worked on and pieces that are n=
ot.
>
>
>> Who is going to kickstart this new community? Who will make sure that it=
 receives the attention it needs in order to graduate from the incubator?
>>
>
> That's what I'm here to find out. =A0Back when I mentioned the project
> before, during the OpenOffice proposal, there were a few people who
> seemed interested in it. =A0I don't remember all the names. =A0I think
> they were from the PO project. =A0If that interest still exists, I think
> that, plus the existing sponsored programmers we already have working
> on this code, would be sufficient to bring the ODF Toolkit to the next
> level. =A0This is not a huge piece of code. =A0If we grew to a dozen
> committers, it would be amazing.
>
> Mind you, we're doing fine and achieving some modest success with the
> project as it is. =A0You can see some of the recent demos we've done
> here:
>
> http://simple.odftoolkit.org/demo/index.html
>
> The other thing that recommends Apache, in my mind, is the synergy
> with OpenOffice, POI and other projects. =A0There is potential, at
> Apache to have an even more amazing collection of document-oriented
> toolkits that covers everything from the legacy binary formats of MS
> Office, to the latest generation of XML-based formats. =A0This would be
> covered both as head-less pure Java libraries, as well as in the SDK
> associated with OpenOffice. =A0Add in that the PDF, SVG and XSL:FO
> libraries from other projects and you have a something that excites
> me, at least.
>
> Think of it this way: =A0If OpenOffice succeeds at Apache, and its
> default file format is ODF, then the ODF Toolkit becomes a necessary
> part of the successful ecosystem.
>
>
>> I appreciate this is not yet a proposal, this is a discussion that might=
 answer these questions.
>>
>
> Thanks, I appreciate the questions.
>
> -Rob
>
>
>> Sent from my mobile device (so please excuse typos)
>>
>> On 27 Jun 2011, at 20:42, Rob Weir <apache@robweir.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I'm cc'ing the POI and OpenOffice projects, inviting them to join this
>>> discussion on the Incubator general list: general@incubator.apache.org
>>>
>>> When we were discussing the OpenOffice proposal a few weeks ago I
>>> mentioned that there was another set of technology called the ODF
>>> Toolkit, that we might want to bring to Apache as well. =A0I heard some
>>> enthusiasm for this at the time, but I didn't have the bandwidth to
>>> put together another proposal. =A0Now I do. =A0I'd like to pitch the id=
ea,
>>> and see if there is still interest in having a formal incubation
>>> proposal submitted, and if so, identifying a Champion and Sponsor for
>>> the proposal.
>>>
>>> Note that this would not be a fork. =A0The ODF Toolkit Union Steering
>>> Committee met this morning and agreed to propose moving to Apache.
>>>
>>> As you probably know, ODF =3D=3D Open Document Format, a open standard
>>> document format for office documents. =A0The ODF standard is created at
>>> OASIS and then sent to ISO/IEC JTC1 for transposition into an
>>> International Standard. =A0ODF 1.0 was first published in 2005. =A0ODF =
1.1
>>> came out in 2007. =A0And ODF 1.2 is "Candidate OASIS Standard" awaiting
>>> final approval in OASIS, probably by end of September. =A0ODF 1.2 is
>>> what most applications are supporting today. =A0 OpenOffice,
>>> LibreOffice, Symphony, KOffice/Calligra Suite use ODF as native
>>> formats. =A0Other applications, including Microsoft Office, Corel
>>> Wordperfect and Google Docs offer some degree of import/export
>>> support. =A0ODF 1.2 is the version also supported by the ODF Toolkit.
>>>
>>> The ODF Toolkit Union maintains the following toolkits, all of them
>>> under the Apache 2.0 license:
>>>
>>> 1) ODFDOM is Java-based typed DOM API, relatively low level, a 1-to-1
>>> mapping to the ODF schema. =A0In fact, much of the code is generated by
>>> processing the schema.
>>>
>>> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/odfdom/pages/Home
>>>
>>> 2) Simple Java API for ODF is a high level wrapper of ODFDOM. =A0So
>>> operations that might require several DOM-level operations, like
>>> deleting a column in a spreadsheet, are a single operation in the
>>> Simple API. =A0Search and replace, copying slides from one presentation
>>> to another, adding hyperlinks to a selection, etc., are top level
>>> operations.
>>>
>>> http://simple.odftoolkit.org/
>>>
>>> 3) The Conformance Tools projects is also in Java, and includes an
>>> online conformance checker of ODF documents, which can also be run in
>>> command line mode.
>>>
>>> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/conformancetools/pages/Home
>>>
>>> 4) XSLTRunner and XSLT Runner Task allows easy use of XSLT transforms
>>> with ODF documents.
>>>
>>> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/conformancetools/pages/ODFXSLTRunner
>>>
>>> 5) AODL is a C#/.NET library for ODF
>>>
>>> http://odftoolkit.org/projects/aodl/pages/Home
>>>
>>> I think there is natural synergy with Apache, especially with the Java
>>> components. =A0For example, I could see publishing pipelines involving
>>> the ODF Toolkit with PDFBox, Batik, FOP, and POI. Having these tools
>>> under a common license, in one place, has obvious benefits.
>>>
>>> Moving this project over would not be a large technical effort.
>>> Mercurial =3D=3D> SVN, =A0some simple website/wiki migration, 30 or so
>>> pages, a few mailing lists and bugzilla databases. =A0It is currently o=
n
>>> the Kenai infrastructure, so similar to OpenOffice, just much, much
>>> smaller in scale.
>>>
>>> I'm open as to whether this would be best eventually as a TLP or as
>>> part of an existing project, like POI or even OpenOffice. =A0I'm leanin=
g
>>> a little toward having this as a TLP, but I'm open to other ideas.
>>>
>>> Also, since this is already an open source project with all code under
>>> Apache 2.0, I assume no SGA is required?
>>>
>>> So please let me know if you agree that Apache would be a good
>>> location to further develop the ODF Toolkit libraries.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> -Rob
>>>
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>>
>
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>


--=20
Ross Gardler (@rgardler)
Programme Leader (Open Development)
OpenDirective http://opendirective.com

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