Cascading of <source> and <othermeta> in maps

["Robert D Anderson" <robander@us.ibm.com>]

Jarno Elovirta pointed out to me today (based on an issue from a DITA-OT user) that we have conflicting information in the spec about cascading metadata - specifically the two elements <source> and <othermeta>. This language is in DITA 1.2 and remains in the latest DITA 1.3 draft.

The following topic lists <source> and <othermeta> as metadata elements that cascade within a map:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/archSpec/cascading-in-a-ditamap.html

The following topic is more comprehensive and covers every metadata element in the map, listing whether it cascades within a map or from map to topic. It says that <source> and <othermeta> cascade from <topicref> to a referenced topic, but that they do not cascade within a map:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/archSpec/reconciling-topic-and-map-metadata.html

I worked quite a bit on that second topic in DITA 1.2 so that's what I was most familiar with - I thought that these two elements did not cascade within a map. I vaguely remember that <othermeta> was discussed during the 1.2 process, and was grouped with <data> as a generic metadata element that cannot be assumed to cascade. I don't remember any specific discussion of <source>.

Given that the two topics directly contradict each other, we need the TC to weigh in on which is correct. Ideally we can also get rid of this duplicate info in the spec. Until now it has been in the back of my mind as one of those things I'd like to fix but may leave alone, given our time constraints and given that the two topics existed in 1.2.

Thanks,

Robert D Anderson
IBM Authoring Tools Development
Chief Architect, DITA Open Toolkit (http://www.dita-ot.org/)