OpenDocument Traps

1Marco Fioretti ([email protected]) 2010/04/15 ODF PlugFest, Granadahttp://mfioretti.comhttp://stop.zona-m.net Some Rights Reserved

Hidden traps in ODF

(and other open standards):

how do we avoid them?

by Marco Fiorettihttp://mfioretti.com

http://stop.zona-m.net

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Speaker introduction

Today's world of digital data and office documents

Purposes of ODF

Goal of this talk

Problem definition

Some examples

Consequences

What should we do?

Agenda

Marco Fioretti ([email protected]) 2010/04/15 ODF PlugFest, Granadahttp://mfioretti.comhttp://stop.zona-m.net Some Rights Reserved

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Marco Fioretti

Freelance writer, activist and teacher about open digital standards, Free Software, digital technologies and the their relations and impact on education, ethics, civil rights and environmental issues

Co-Author of the O'Reilly Open Government book

Author of the Family Guide to Digital Freedom (http://digifreedom.net)

Contributing Editor of Linux Journal

Member of the OpenDocument Fellowship and Digistan.org

Author introduction


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Today's world of digital data and office documents


From the “Data, data everywhere” Economist report, Feb. 2010:

The world contains an unimaginably vast amount of digital information... that makes it possible to do many things that previously could not be done

How do we train for this the next generation, not just of scientists, but of people in government and in the industry?

Since we all want ODF to be used as much as possible in a world like that, we must make sure that it is used in the right way

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Purposes of ODF


We want ODF to provide real interoperability:

In the present, that is across different places and SW environments

In the future, that is over time:

data ownership and long-term availability

What we write today must be completely readable and usable (as

far as file formats are concerned, of course) 100 years from now as

it is today

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Goal of this talk


Present a problem that I first pointed out 4 years ago,

because since then:

several people confirmed to me that the problem exists

but there has been no defined reaction to it yet

Propose a couple of possible solutions

Stimulate the community to start discussing them

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Problem definition


OpenDocument is a zip/XML containerWhat is open are the specs for the container and its most common

or mandatory parts

But nothing in the specs prevents developers from writing

software that, by default embeds into an ODF file objects:

that are in proprietary formats, or

must interact with external objects through proprietary protocols

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Problem definition (2)


If you think this is a theoretical problem, just look at the last 15

years of the World Wide Web.

HTML is open, but we had all the same:

Browser wars

Flash, RealAudio and what not embedded in plain, open HTML

All the risks of lock-in by “Software as a Service”, "Cloud

Computing” and similar

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Some examples


An ODF file may contain proprietary objects like:

Images in proprietary formats

audio/video that need proprietary codecs

Digital signatures made with non-standard algorithms

Any other metadata

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Some examples (2)


An ODF file may also contain:

Macros that must follow a document to make it interactive

(ex: interactive courseware) instead of adding features to

an office suite (ex: a readability calculator)

Embedded databases

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Consequences


Any object like those into an .odX file would produce a 100%

ISO26300 compliant file that is not really open, that is:PortableInteroperableSuitable for long-term archival

Corollary: every software that produces such kinds of .odX

files can participate to (and win) a government tender

restricted to software that is “ISO26300 compliant”

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What should we do?


Of course, this does not mean that we should give

up ODF extensions, only that they, too, should be

open.

On paper, there are at least two possible solutions:

An “OpenFile” or similar trademark

An archival profile for ODF

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OpenFile


Concept based on the idea that technical specification can not

prevent the problems defined in the previous slides, because

their origin is not technical, and shouldn't even try to do it

Extensible to any other type of document (CAD designs,

Health Records...)

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OpenFile (2)


OpenFile: a trademark that is applicable only to files in

which ALL internal components are Open as ODF is.

Public Administrations could commit to accept, distribute and archive

only digital documents that can be given the OpenFile trademark.

Obvious drawback: who should own and define such a trademark? ISO?

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ODF/A: and ODF profile for long-term archival


PDF has a profile that was designed just to avoid problems of

the kind mentioned in this talk. Couldn't ODF do the same?

An ODF/A profile could require things like:

Embedded images must be in a list of specifically enumerated open

formats

No OLE embedding or other platform-specific embeddings is allowed

Scripts and macros are not allowed

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ODF/A (2)


An ODF/A standard profile could be much more precise and testable than a trademark

This is good because governments and other users already know how to state procurement and usage requirements in terms of standards

Example usable as inspiration: the Eco Declaration

(www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/ECMA-370.pdf)

There already is an OASIS committee that could do this

Downside: profiles like this limit ODF capabilities to represent complex documents

but applications could support both ODF and ODF/A, allowing users to chose the best one for their needs

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What now?


Taking care of these issues can bring a lot of work and opportunities to developers. To avoid hidden traps, organizations would need:

Automatic checkers that (like antivirus SW) signal proprietary components

Filters that replace those components with others in open formats

…

What matters is to:Start discussing together how to solve this problem

Make sure that lawmakers, archivists and procurement managers in Public Administrations are aware of it

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Many thanks to:

Rob Weir for some info and stimulating discussion about these issues

Gcubo, (Grupo de usuarios de GNU/Linux de Granada),

for funding my participation to the ODF PlugFest!

Further reading: http://robertogaloppini.net/2007/04/01/file-format-hidden-traps-in-opendocument-or-any-other-open-standard-and-how-to-avoid-them/

This talk will be available online at http://mfioretti.com within the end of next week

Thanks for your attention! Questions?

Feedback at [email protected] is always welcome!

Credits and final info


http://robertogaloppini.net/2007/04/01/file-format-hidden-traps-in-opendocument-or-any-other-open-standard-and-how-to-avoid-them/

http://mfioretti.com/

mailto:[email protected]

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OpenDocument Traps