darcusblog

I’m prompted to consolidate thoughts I’ve been thinking about for awhile by a recent post to the OpenDocument comment list from Alex Brown. In it, Alex correctly observes that [t]he modelling of bibliographic citations in ODF is totally inadequate for real-world content, and suggests instead that ODF must either remove the existing inadequate model, or replace it with a model which is fit-for-purpose; preferably one based on existing actual or de-facto standard.

I support Alex’s basic analysis, though have a somewhat different conclusion that keeps with the spirit of his post. I’d suggest removing the current support AND also adding more substantial support via the new RDF-based metadata support coming in ODF 1.2. Using an RDF vocabulary like bibo heavily reuses existing standards like Dublin Core and FOAF, and only adds those domain-specific types and properties they are missing. It also means it include native RDF-extensbility. If a developer needs to encode some data not appropriate to include in bibo or DC or FOAF as a whole, they can simply do so without breaking things.

Here’s the thing, though:

Simply having standard support in a document format is not enough; you need to entice developers to actually use them. And the evidence from the OOXML world is that is not happening. I am, for example, aware of three different third-party bibliographic applications that can work with Word 2007/2008: Zotero, Mendeley, and Endnote. None of them use the standard OOXML support for citations and bibliographies, and all of them use their own custom fields.

The upshot: an absolutely unacceptable tower of babel. Users cannot collaborate on their documents because the citation fields are specific to different applications.

So, yes, some guidelines and standards for OOXML and ODF would be valuable. But this is not close to enough. Consider this very practical use case that shows both where this market really needs to be, and how far away it still is:

Jane starts a document using OpenOffice and Zotero, adding citations as she goes. She sends the document to her colleagues who use Word and Mendeley and/or Endnote, and still another who prefers Microsoft’s built-in support. They also add citations, and then send the document back to Jane. Jane can then add still more citations, change the citation style, and everything updates correctly for the final draft.

This use case is impossible to realize right now. Even projects like Zotero that have been built on the principle of openness, and which support both Word and OpenOffice, cannot support different users collaborating on the same document.

So what do we need?

We need applications developers to build the APIs that makes it easy for these developers to use the standard fields and metadata support.

I’m looking at you, Microsoft, where you have a citation and bibliographic API that is not really serious about opening up opportunities for third-party applications.

I’m looking at Apple, whose Pages application has a closed API for use only by Endnote.

I’m looking at OpenOffice, who I hope is successful in contributing towards some of this with the forthcoming RDF support.

I also think third-party projects like Zotero and Mendeley and Thomson Reuters need to raise the priority of interoperability. Doing so effectively can also be in their own self-interest, as it could mean less development resources needing to be poured into having to maintain separate processing code bases.

So in short, let’s add richer support to ODF, but let’s also see different developers contribute towards realizing the use case I outline above.

Mendeley is a new bibliographic service and application based on a similar ideas as Zotero, Connotea, etc While it’s not immediately apparent, like Zotero, they use CSL.

Andrea Rossatto has released hs-bibutils, which is a wrapper around Chris Putnam’s bibutils. This means you can use bibtex (or RIS, or anything else bibutils supports) data while authoring your documents in pandoc. Nice!

Along with Thomson Reuters’ lawsuit against GMU/Zotero, they’ve also sought to close down access to their style files. They have done this by slapping a terms of use agreement on their own online style archive. But, some Endnote users have asked, what does this mean for them sharing their styles?

We have an answer:

It has always been and continues to be our policy that licensed EndNote individual and institutional customers are free to customize and share style (.ens), database (.enl & .enlx), filter (.enf), and connection (.enz) EndNote files created using EndNote with other licensed EndNote users for use solely in conjunction with the Software.

Jason Rollins, EndNote Product Development

So, someone asks in reply, what does this really mean?

Just for clarification: would these limitations apply not only to files that were originally distributed by EndNote, but also to files that are created in EndNote from scratch? I can’t find anything in my current EULA that would limit my rights for such files and no other software I have seems to make these claims. If I write a paper in Word, Microsoft doesn’t limit my distribution rights of that file.

Answer, from Thomson Reuters’ alternative universe:

Just to be completely clear, it has never been possible to create an EndNote Bibliographic Output Style file (.ens) file “from scratch”. When one creates a new .ens file from within EndNote, this is actually a modification of a file template that contains thousands of characters of code that defines many default and essential characterics of the file and its interaction with other components of the overall EndNote application.

Wow; this is really breathtaking! I really can’t believe they actually want to claim that they own ALL Endnote style files and can constrain how they’re used! Nevermind that any file, of any format, is going to contain many default and essential characteristics of the file and its interaction with other components; it’s true of a Word template file, or some database, or whatever.

This is the most ridiculous IP claim I’ve seen in a long while. I hope some of the legal blogs that have been following this manage to pick this up and analyze it from a more formal legal perspective.

Ron Jerome has recently started work on a PHP port of CiteProc, for integration with Drupal. This would add the sort of citation processing support one sees in Zotero to Drupal, and potentially any other PHP application.

Having gotten roughly half way through the port, Ron got busy with other responsibilities, like updating his Biblio module for Drupal 6. So, instead, he’s decided to submit a project for consideration in the upcoming Google Summer of Code. It seems the idea piqued the interest of the right people, and it’s now listed among the “official” list of project ideas.

So if you’re a student with good PHP skills and interest in contributing in this space, feel free to apply. Or, if you know someone that might fit the bill, urge them to do so. If accepted, I’ll be a co-mentor, along with Ron.