Subject: RE: Alternative formats for IDs

From: "Yaakov Stein" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 06:55:31 +0200

Second, your assumption that other SDOs have been able to blissfully make use
of private formats like MS Word without incident is simply untrue. One obvious
counterexample I know of is the CCITT/ITU, which has in the past used MS Word
as a distribution format for many of it's documents. I have quite a few of
these documents on hand and occasionally need to refer to old versions of them,
but when I try and read them using modern tools the results are rarely good.
Many of these documents simply refuse to open, sometimes crashing the tool I'm
using, while others do open but are misformatted, sometimes to the point of
being illegible.

[YJS] I think that something has been lost in the translation here.
 
ITU (I have participated in the ITU-T for many years, and ALWAYS
sent in my contributions in Word) ONLY accepts contributions in Word
and ONLY works on documents in Word (using ITU designed templates).
 
The OUTPUT documents are available in Word and PDF, with PDF
the recommended format (due to Word's bad habit of changing pagination
when using different page sizes, etc). The PDF output should be readable
indefinitely. 
 
The Word format is mainly there for people who may need to work on 
updates of the standard (unlike RFCs, ITU Recommendations are updated). 
If such a Word doc is unreadable for anyone needing it, the
secretariat has tools to convert it.
 
Y(J)S
 
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From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 22:09:10 -0800

Hi -

I, too, have participated in other SDOs where, to a greater or lesser extent,
Word documents were used.  The experience was often bad; the shortcomings
of that particular tool for editing large or complex specifications (e.g., some
of those related to CMIP and GDMO) caused much grief.  Version compatibility
problems, both for Word and PDF, also wasted much time.  No good came of
it, and much bad, including some virus outbreaks caried by Word files exchanged
on floppies at editing meetings. Let's not repeat those mistakes.

If folks have high hopes for ISO 19005-1 or some other PDF flavor, let's
give them a short time, say five years, to see whether those formats prove
to be truly stable.  If they do, then committing to them might make sense.

Randy

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From: Ned Freed <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 11:41:29 -0800 (PST)

> [YJS] I think that something has been lost in the translation here.
 
Indeed it does: You appear to be unfamiliar with the specifics of your own
proposal, which quite clearly calls for MS Word as both an INPUT and OUTPUT
format.

> and ONLY works on documents in Word (using ITU designed templates).
 
I don't know and don't particularly care what process the ITU uses for this. My
comments were directed at the notion of using Word as an output format for
RFCs.

However, I note in passing that at least one other person has stated that the
procedure the ITU uses does not, in their opinion, work well at all. I cannot
say I'm surprised by this.

> when using different page sizes, etc). The PDF output should be readable

That appears to be true today. It wasn't true in the past. Many of the ITU
specifications I have are in Word format only.
 
> updates of the standard (unlike RFCs, ITU Recommendations are updated).

Except when it's the only choice, in which case everyone who wants to
read the thing has to put up with it.

> secretariat has tools to convert it.
 
I am extremely skeptical that the ITU Secretariat stands ready and willing
to assist any random schlub who comes along with a handful of old
ITU documents they acquired several decades back and can no longer read.

> > Try CVS or SVN and diff - works for everyone.

> Sorry, although I have such toys on my home computer
> I am not allowed to install such unsupported SW
> on my work computer. 

So? As it happens the place where I work has rules severely restricting the use
of various Microsoft products. CVS, SVN and diff, OTOH, are all fully supported
tools in my work environment.

As Russ pointed out, it is no more reasonable to expect you to be swayed by the
vagarities of my workplace than it is for me to give a damn about those of
yours. The intersection of the tools allowed by everyone's workplace is pretty
much guaranteed to be the empty.

In any case, since I've seen not even the slightest hint of any support for
your proposal to adopt proprietary formats for I-Ds and RFCs, it appears that
further discussion is a waste of time. So this will be my final message on this
topic.

				Ned

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From: "Larry J. Blunk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 15:30:37 -0500

From http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/edh/faqs-docsub.html

"When submitting a document which contains figures, it is highly recommended
that the figures be created using a graphic software and inserted into the
document rather than creating the figure using the default Picture Editor in
Word. Drawings made using Picture Editor do not convert properly in different
versions Word for Windows and in some cases, the figures do not appear at all.
In cases where the author has used the Picture Editor, the author must ensure
that all the elements or "objects" in the figure are grouped (defined as one
figure) to avoid objects being re-aligned when the margins or paper size
are modified."

  Not exactly confidence inspiring.   Good thing they "highly recommend" not
using the default Picture Editor in Word.