RE: For ZIP packaging, take a look at OCF (Open Container Format)

Hi Jon, 

Thanks for the input and bringing to our attention the OCF Draft. I
personally have not looked too closely at OCF yet, but I'll investigate OCF
as a possible candidate packaging format for Widgets. Like you said, it
depends on its compatibility with ZIP and if vendors are willing to jump on
board and implement OCF specific things (whatever they may be). Just as
importantly, I also need to look at how easy it is for a user to create an
OCF abstract/physical package... and how well does OCF conform to the Client
Side Web Applications (Widgets) Requirements [1], particularly as it relates
to packaging, metadata, and signing?  (at first glance, they are very
closely aligned). 

 

Regarding Zip-64, it is still unclear to me why Opera excluded 64-bit
support in the current Widget 1.0 spec input. Anyone from Opera willing to
give us some insight? Despite what is currently there, I don't believe the
next release of the Widget spec will be restrictive on 64-bit support.
However, allowing 64-bit zip support needs to be further investigated by the
WAF Working Group, particularly in relation to mobile devices/phones and on
widget engines generally. 

 

Once I give the OCF draft a good read over and discuss it with the working
group I will let you know more. I encourage you to also read [1] in the mean
time and send any additional thoughts and comments. 

 

Kind regards,

Marcos 

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/WAPF-REQ/

 

From: public-appformats-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-appformats-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Jon Ferraiolo
Sent: Tuesday, 12 December 2006 8:52 AM
To: Jon Ferraiolo
Cc: public-appformats@w3.org
Subject: Re: For ZIP packaging, take a look at OCF (Open Container Format)

 

I should have mentioned that Adobe is using OCF within PDF (see
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Mars) and within Adobe Digital Editions
(http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/digitaleditions/), so the technology
isn't just for ODF/OpenOffice/StarOffice.

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Jon Ferraiolo/Menlo Park/IBM@IBMUS 
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12/11/2006 02:33 PM




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Subject


For ZIP packaging, take a look at OCF (Open Container Format)

 







I noticed that Widgets 1.0 requires that widgets are bundled in ZIP. To save
everyone time and energy, and to get the industry all on the same page, you
should take a look at the OCF standard from the IDPF (the ebook/epublishing
standards group). The URL is:

 <http://www.idpf.org/ocf/ocf1.0/index.htm>
http://www.idpf.org/ocf/ocf1.0/index.htm

This specification addresses all of the complexities with using ZIP as part
of a standard. OCF builds upon another industry standard, ODF (
<http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office>
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office). OCF's
approach to ZIP is designed to be upwardly compatible with the ZIP packaging
used in ODF, the ISO standard for office documents.

One difference from the latest Widgets 1.0 spec is that OCF requires ZIP64
support, whereas Widgets 1.0 excludes it. (Not sure why anyone in the year
2006 would produce a specification that intentionally prevents 64-bit
addressing....) In fact, 64-bit support is the only newer feature from ZIP
that OCF requires. 

The primary new inventions in OCF beyond the ZIP packaging used in ODF are:

* For bootstrapping, it requires a nearly trivial META-INF/container.xml
file to point to the root file(s) within the container. (For HTML, the root
file is usually index.html.)
* It defines standard locations for package-level metadata
(META-INF/metadata.xml), digital signatures (META-INF/signatures.xml),
encryption (META-INF/encryption.xml), and rights management
(META-INF/rights.xml), and requires XML Signatures and XML Encryption if
signatures or encryption are used.

The IDPF tried its best to address its own needs for ebooks/epublishing, but
do so in a manner that meets industry needs on a general basis and keep
things as simple as possible.

Jon

Jon Ferraiolo <jferrai@us.ibm.com>
Web Architect, Emerging Technologies
IBM, Menlo Park, CA
Mobile: +1-650-926-5865