Re: [office-comment] OpenFormulas

Hi David,

Wow!  You're on fire.  I just want to duck low and get out of the way!

We discussed the OpenFormula options at the Monday morning TC
conference.  There was general agreement that we ought to get out of
the way and let you push forward.  But we also think that we need to
get your proposals in front of the OOo and KOffice project people as
soon as you're ready.  Like everything else in the OASIS OpenDocument
spec, we try to get proposals in front of the application developers
and beta testers as soon as possible.  They know where the rubber meets
the road, and they never let our lofty idealism run to far from
reality.  

And truth be told, we're the boat anchor dragging them down.  It's just
the opposite of what people think.  The communities are electric, but
they never seem to lose their balance.  Nor are they hesitant to stick
a prod in the TC's butt whenever needed.

Much of our discussion this morning concerned the issue of a shared
community project focused on your OpenFormula specification. While we
don't want to tie you down in any way David, your work in many ways
represents the holy grail to our spreadsheet projects.   We need their
expertise.  We need their review of the options and opinions you have
presented as you work through this incredibly intractable problem. 
Face it, you bit off the big one here.   There are good reasons why
formulas are a no mans land where only fools and footloose dreamers
dare tread.  In fact, one of the things that came up this morning was
the discovery that both KOffice and OOo model their formulas after MS
eXcel.   Perhaps reverse engineering and the migration of those
formulas has become such an overwhelming concern that no one seemingly
has the luxury of stepping back and re thinking what it is we really
need to be doing to break out of the exhausting but never ending
cycle.  Running hard to keep up with the arbitrary and self serving
advances of Microsoft hardly seems like the kind of foundation any self
respecting open standards - open source community would want to stake
their independence on.  But that' s the hand we've been dealt.

One of the things you might want to consider is the distinct
possibility of setting up a shared effort between yourself as the
OpenFormula project lead, the OASIS TC, OOo, and KOffice.  This project
would more than likely be willingly hosted by and much welcomed at the
OOo Community.  The OASIS TC could reference the work as an ongoing
enhancement to the specification, including the work as it progresses,
is road tested, and hardened by community users.  Just some things you
might want to consider my friend.

While inclusion in the OASIS OpenDocument specification is clearly the
objective, the TC also recognizes that the OpenFormula Project might
best serve the global community of computational consumers and
developers as either a standalone specification, or a distinguished
subset of the OpenDocument TC.  This is no doubt a very important
effort you've engaged in, and there may be far reaching implications
and effects that go way beyond our current charter.   Either way David,
we are really grateful that you stepped up to the challenge, and have
done so with admirable insight and expertise.  

You're working on a very unique and important gift to the world.  And
many thanks for including us.  Do we have your permission to bring in
our community experts and testers?

~ge~

David A. Wheeler wrote:
I'm
trying to unify the various formula formats
  

(text:formula, text:condition, table:formula, draw:formula, and
anim:formula)
  

into a single format. For the most part this is really
  

easy, they're _almost_ the same.
  

  

But I've immediately noticed one inconsistency: function parameter
  

separators.  Both draw:formula and anim:formula use comma (",") as
  

the separator.  On the other hand, OOo's table:formula
  

internally uses semicolon (";") as the function separator.
  

Semicolon has the advantage of working regardless of locale,
  

but comma is the more traditional parameter separator.
  

  

There are at least 3 options for unifying these:
  

* Change the OpenDocument specification to use ";"
  

  as function param separators everywhere (e.g., change
  

  draw:formula and anim:formula).
  

* Having the unified formula syntax accept both.
  

  This means nothing needs to be changed now in the spec.
  

  This also means that the text-as-displayed may be
  

  different in many locales from what's sent, which might
  

  be confusing and does add a burden to simple implementations.
  

  Consistency wouldn't be required in data, since both
  

  characters would work, and that might be a problem.
  

  This approach means that numbers MUST be
  

  sent using locale "C" (something that happens anyway,
  

  but that is an unfortunate side-effect).
  

* Require everyone use "," as the function parameter
  

  separator.  This would require changing OpenOffice's
  

  reading of spreadsheets, etc., to accept this.
  

  

Thoughts?  Anyone have a preference?
  

If this could be worked out, I think we end up
  

eliminating a bunch of different formula formats &
  

winnowing it down to one main one.
  

The notion of switching to ";" everywhere is appealing to
  

me, and if not that, switching to "," everywhere.
  

  

--- David A. Wheeler