Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] List of ODF interop issues that needto be addressed -- Electronic signatures

marbux wrote:

> Electronic signatures are a major market requirement in commerce and in
> government. A full specification of conformance requirements necessary
> to achieve interoperability in regard to electronic signatures among
> conformant implementations of ODF and the ODF profiles contemplated by
> this TC.

I'd agree that digital signatures are really, really important issue.
However, as they are to be standardized in ODF 1.2 (as Rob said), I
wonder if there's any "official" standard for signatures in older
specifications, the one that can be used for conformance testing?

> StarOffice is presently capable of preserving electronic signatures. I
> am not sure of OOo's capability in that regard. 

OOo can do that:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/How_to_use_digital_Signatures

However, that is between two products of very similar code base, so
there's no interoperability issues here. However! - other applications
like Lotus Symphony (based on OOo code!) and Koffice just don't know how
to handle digital signatures.  It is not a dire situation, as there are
two products (one of them FLOSS) that can do digital signatures, so if
someone has to use digital signatures they aren't stranded, but this
situation should be addressed, because there is a strong need for that
feature.

There's "Digital Signature Services v1.0" OASIS document that might
(should? must?) be used to define interop protocols for digital signatures.

Again, absence of digital signatures standard is a big show stopper for
ODF adoption by governments and other users, and should be addressed
ASAP. But not by this group.