Hi
As champion for corinthia, I hereby ask for a vote on accepting corinthia
into incubator.
It seems the discussion have died out, in reality most of the discussion
has been through private mails and IRC/hipchat (which disturbes me). As a
result the proposal is now more clear about what the project is and what it
isnt.
We have added a committer and a mentor during the discussion period.
The proposal is available in
http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/CorinthiaProposal
<http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/CorinthiaProposal?action=recall&rev=60>
Remark the vote is for revision #60 (the newest).
Proposal is added as text to the bottom of this mail.
Please vote
+1 for accepting corinthia into incubator
0 for dont care
-1 for not accepting corinthia into incubator (please add a reason).
Vote is open until Sunday december 7, 23:30 UTC. If needed the period can
be prolonged.
Thanks for your vote.
on behalf of project corinthia
jan i.
========= PROPOSAL TEXT =======
#pragma section-numbers 2
= Corinthia Podling Proposal =
== Abstract ==
Corinthia is a toolkit for converting between and editing common office
file formats, with an initial focus on word processing. It is designed to
cater for multiple classes of platforms - desktop, web, and mobile - and
relies heavily on web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for
representing and manipulating documents. The toolkit is small, portable,
and flexible, with minimal dependencies. The target audience is developers
wishing to include office viewing, conversion, and editing functionality
into their applications.
The file format conversion library is implemented in highly-portable C,
and can be easily embedded in native applications, with bindings for other
programming languages planned. The library allows two-way conversion
between different formats, and avoids irreversible loss of content or
formatting unsupported in a target format by updating the source format in
a way that makes only the minimal changes necessary.
The editing library is implemented in Java''''''Script, and runs in a
browser runtime - either an actual web browser, or a web view
embedded in a native app. It follows the philosophy of responsive design,
popular on the web, where layout of a document is automatically adapted to
suit the screen size and orientation, enabling the same content to be
viewed on mobile phones, tablets, and desktop systems. All layout is
handled by the browser's own engine; the editor works solely with the
document's HTML structure and CSS styles. Currently the editor only
operates in an embedded web view, but we plan to have it run in all major
web browsers, and provide a clean API for easy integration into various
native apps.
Importantly, Corinthia document viewing and editing is on the intermediate
form (HTML & CSS), limited to common, widely-supported features. Corinthia
is not a comprehensive substitute for format-specific authoring, editing,
and final-form printing/production software. It is intended to complement,
not compete with, major office suites.
Identification and confirmation of inter-convertible features of different
formats for dependable import and export involves development of extensive
test documents in the different formats. There is profiling of the extent
to which standardized formats are supported in practice, with
identification of deviations and implementation-dependent choices that
impact convertibility.
== Proposal ==
The goal of Corinthia is to provide a responsive design editor as well as
a toolkit that enacts a defined conversion between different office
document formats. Responsive design fits the layout as needed, tablet or
desktop. The editor is a lightweight editor - an extension and not a
replacement for the desktop editor.
Many office document programs claim to read/write to the ISO open
standards for office documents, Open''''''Document Format (ODF) and Office
Open XML (OOXML), but do not document which parts are left unimplemented.
Furthermore, the standards have a large number of "implementation defined"
parts, making real-world congruence chancy. The Corinthia toolkit wants to
put this unacknowledged aspect into the open and provide "compliance
sheets" for document formats, as known from industry computer protocols.
Corinthia aims at generating a large set of test documents, which can be
used to verify the "compliance sheets". The code can work as test case for
other applications (or entities tendering for OOXML/ODF based systems) as
well.
The base of Corinthia and its toolkit is the library Doc''''''Formats,
which converts between different office document file formats. Currently it
supports .docx (part of the OOXML specification), HTML, and LaTeX
(export-only). In addition to this is an editing library, which allows
manipulation of the HTML files in a web browser or embedded web view, and
can be used in conjunction with Doc''''''Formats to edit documents in all
supported formats.
The design of Doc''''''Formats is based on on the idea of bidirectional
transformation (BDT), in which a specific document (the original file in
its source format) is converted into an abstract document (in the
destination format). A modified version of the abstract document can then
be used to update the specific document in a non-destructive manner,
keeping intact all parts of the file which are not supported in the
abstract format by modifying the original file rather than replacing it.
Descriptions of BDT can be found in:
Aaron Bohannon, J. Nathan Foster, Benjamin C. Pierce et. al. Boomerang:
Resourceful Lenses for String Data. Technical Report MS-CIS-07-15
Department of Computer and Information Science University of Pennsylvania.
November 2007. (http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/boomerang.pdf)
Benjamin Pierce. Foundations for Bidirectional Programming. ICMT2009 -
International Conference on Model Transformation. June 2009. (
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/icmt-2009-slides.pdf)
The short term goal of the project is to have an easy-to-integrate library
that any application can use to embed support for a range of different file
formats, and use the parsing, serialisation, and conversion facilities for
various purposes. These include editors, batch conversion tools, web
publishing systems, document analysis tools, and content management
systems. By abstracting over different file formats and using HTML as a
common intermediate format, one can just code an application to that end,
and let Doc''''''Formats take care of conversion to other formats.
The medium term goal of the project is to have a series of end-user
applications (separate from the library itself), including an editor and
file conversion tool. These will serve as examples of how the libraries can
be used.
And ultimately to have a touch based UI for office documents.
It is also a goal to cooperate with other open source projects, in terms
of getting input from them as well as providing APIs for their use.
Corinthia is meant to be easy to understand and work with, making it more
approachable for a range of projects.
== Background ==
The document conversion library and the editing library have been shipping
as components of UX Write on the iOS app store since February 2013. Both
components have undergone continued development since that time. As far as
UX Write is concerned, they provide a stable and reliable codebase.
As an open source project, Corinthia is completely new, in the sense that
it is now moving from a single-developer commercial project, to an open,
community-based project. We believe that this is the most beneficial path
forward for the technology, to enable it to be developed to its full
potential, and made available to anyone who needs to deal with multiple
document formats or provide editing functionality on web, desktop, or
mobile platforms.
== Rationale ==
Corinthia's approach to providing an editor and thoroughly-documented
conversion of office documents is perfectly aligned with Apache's mission
to produce software for the public good. There is further benefit in
documented tests demonstrating where implementations of standard formats
deviate for any reason, identifying where interoperability and
inter-conversion is improvable.
The project has potential to grow by collaboration with other projects,
tapping mutual interests and identifying cases for improved
interoperability, providing new architectures and design philosophies
available to supplement existing implementations.
Introducing Corinthia in the Apache family of projects provides ready
availability and participation with the diverse community of experienced
Apache contributors under convenient familiar conditions.
== Initial Goals ==
The initial and most important goal is to enlarge the community consisting
of developers, testers, and people who know the standards in depth.
There are four technical goals:
* Cleanup core, to make it easy to add filters (format converters)
* Complete the ODF filter
* Produce an editor based on Java''''''Script & HTML which can be
embedded in mobile apps or used in a Web browser
* Develop additional tests and compliance sheets for supported file
formats
Our initial goals might not be big visions, but we prefer something
reachable, and then make bigger goals as we grow.
== Current Status ==
=== Meritocracy ===
Some of the initial committers are already part of Apache, and those who
are not are becoming familiar with working in "the Apache way".
=== Community ===
Our community could be larger, and committers from AOO and others have
shown interest in the project, but we have preferred to stay a stable, but
very active group until we are part of Incubator.
Apache/Incubator provides a lot of tools (e.g., mailing lists) and
community practices--The Apache Way--that enable community engagement and
growth.
=== Core Developers ===
Peter Kelly,
Jan Iversen,
Svante Schubert,
Dennis E. Hamilton,
=== Alignment ===
Corinthia has commonalities with Apache OpenOffice (AOO), but is not
competing. AOO is a desktop product and integrated suite and Corinthia is a
lightweight editor and a developer product (library).
Corinthia has a document API as do Apache POI and the incubating Apache
ODF Toolit, but the focus is different. Corinthia targets a conversion
library and an editor. POI and ODF Toolkit provide APIs for processing
documents and are both Java-based.
Sharing test documents in standard document-file formats with projects
like AOO and POI is a valuable opportunity.
== Known Risks ==
The biggest risk Corinthia faces is failing to attract a larger community
(not only developers but also testers and documenters). Actions have been
taken and will continue to minimize the risk:
* Contact to student projects (in particular Capstone)
* Talks at Apache''''''Cons
The project uses existing technologies, so there are no real technological
risks.
There is of course a risk that nobody wants to use the project, but the
fun building the community and project make this risk bearable.
=== Orphaned Products ===
None
=== Inexperience with Open Source ===
All initial committers have worked several years with open source.
=== Homogenous Developers ===
The initial committers are geographically distributed across the world.
Half of the initial developers are experienced Apache committers and all
have experience in working in distributed development communities.
The original source has already been partly refactored by other developers
to make sure knowledge is spread among multiple people.
=== Reliance on Salaried Developers ===
No committers are being paid to participate.
Peter Kelly and Louis Suarez-Potts have a company that has added a
commercial editor for iPad & iPhone on top of the library.
=== Relationships with Other Apache Projects ===
Corinthia has/will have a relation to at least the following projects:
* '''AOO''', core developers have said on dev@ that for targeting mobile
platforms, a rewrite of AOO would be better than building on top of the
existing sources. It is our hope to have long and beneficial interaction
with AOO.
* '''Httpd''', we would like to make a module that on the fly presents
odf/ooxml documents as pure HTML.
* '''POI''', Corinthia library is similar to POI, but simpler, more
generic, and written in C instead of Java. We hope to be able to share
know-how as well as test cases.
Corinthia is based on document standards which are used by numerous
high-profile projects. We would like to cooperate with the projects to
exchange knowledge.
== Documentation ==
The current documentation can be found at
https://github.com/uxproductivity/Corinthia/wiki
The project is aware that this is work in progress and there is special
attention on this task.
== Initial Source ==
The source originated as part of the UX Write product. The file format
conversion library, Doc''''''Formats, and the Java''''''Script + HTML5
editor are now under Apache License version 2 (ALv2).
The iOS-specific code from UX Write is not part of the grant and remains
closed source.
== Source and Intellectual Property Submission Plan ==
Source code will be moved from the Git''''''Hub uxproductivity/Corinthia
repository when the incubator repository is set up. The content of the
repository will be included in a cCLA grant from Peter Kelly. All original
contributors are aligned with movement to an Apache Podling.
== External Dependencies ==
The current source includes two third-party libraries to which minor
modifications have been made(
https://github.com/uxproductivity/Corinthia/tree/stable/DocFormats/3rdparty/external
).
* '''minizip''', a layer on top of zlib,
http://www.winimage.com/zLibDll/minizip.html
* '''w3c-tidy-html5''', an HTML5 manipulation library,
https://github.com/w3c/tidy-html5
The changes made to the original sources are undocumented. The plan is to
have pristine sources with documented changes in some manner. The existing
licenses are ALv2 compatible and are honored. Any changes in the
adaptation for Corinthia that are meaningful patches for the original code
will be contributed upstream.
Furthermore, Corinthia depends on
* libxml2, http://xmlsoft.org
* zlib, http://www.zlib.net
* Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL), http://www.libsdl.org/
* Showdown, http://github.com/showdownjs/showdown
== Cryptography ==
Corinthia does not use cryptography nor does it delivery any cryptographic
functions.
== Required Resources ==
=== Mailing Lists ===
* corinthia-...@incubator.apache.org for general discussions
* corinthia-priv...@incubator.apache.org for private discussions
* corinthia-iss...@incubator.apache.org for issue-tracker notifications
=== Subversion Directory ===
* https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/incubator/corinthia
for management of the incubator web site
=== Git Repository ===
Our current git repository is on Git''''''Hub (
https://github.com/uxproductivity/Corinthia).
It will be migrated to
* ASF Git repository incubator-corinthia.git
And mirrored at github through the apache organization.
=== Issue Tracking ===
A JIRA issue tracker is requested.
=== Other Resources ===
* Wiki: We are currently using github wiki, we would like to move to an
Apache supported wiki (preferable mediawiki), before our documentation
becomes difficult to move.
* Buildbot: We would like to be able to build/test on OSX, Windows and
Ubuntu.
* Code signing: It is desirable to provide OS-compliant digital
signatures with project-created convenience binaries of compiled libraries,
utilities, and client applications.
* Web: We would like, if possible, to have the home page
corinthia.incubator.apache.org (just raw html please).
* Blog: We would like to have a blog, preferable wordpress.
== Initial Committers ==
Dennis E Hamilton, orc...@apache.org
Dorte Fjalland, do...@casacondor.com (ICLA recorded)
Jan Iversen, j...@apache.org
Louis Suárez-Potts, lo...@apache.org
Peter Kelly, pe...@uxproductivity.com (ICLA recorded)
Svante Schubert, svanteschub...@apache.org
== Affiliations ==
None
== Sponsors ==
=== Champion ===
Jan Iversen
=== Nominated Mentors ===
Jan Iversen (IPMC)
Daniel Gruno (IPMC)
=== Sponsoring Entity ===
Incubator IPMC.
