RE: [legalxml-courtfiling] Salt Lake minutes

["Chambers, Rolly" <rlchambers@smithcurrie.com>]

Hi Don -
 
I'm assuming that "subsetting the DTD" refers to the proposal to provide
a simplified CD 1.1 DTD or CD 1.1 "lite."
 
You probably are aware that the Todd Vincent who expressed the
"over-inclusive but optional" approach to developing the Court Filing
1.1 DTD is the same Todd Vincent who, after working with the CF 1.1 DTD
in the GCAC interoperability pilot,  wrote the "Lessons Learned"
document. That paper suggests that "It may, therefore, make sense for
individual jurisdictions to create a 'backwards-compatible subset' of
the Court Filing DTD for specific purposes and requirements." 
 
For clarification, is your concern that "subsetting" the CD 1.1 DTD
should not be addressed in the CD 1.1 spec itself but should be left to
individual jurisdictions to address via court policy standards? It
sounds like the worry is that subsetting the CD 1.1 DTD as part of the
Court Document specification may intrude upon and get crosswise with
court policy standards.
Or is your concern broader - that there should never be subsetting of
the CD 1.1 DTD either by individual jurisdictions or by the CD 1.1 spec?
 
As far as the Court Document proposal goes, the aim is to offer a single
simplified CD 1.1 DTD (not multiple subsets) as something purely
optional and perhaps easier to get started with than taking on the full
CD 1.1 DTD. The object is to trim from the full CD 1.1 DTD elements and
attributes that are optional and not frequently used in most court
documents, such as the "notarization," "personIdentification" and
"organizationIdentification" elements, some of the optional attributes,
etc. The assumption is that it might be easier to start learning with a
simpler subset of the full DTD. The tradeoff is that a simplified DTD
would be useful for validating basic, "plain vanilla" XML court
documents but not those requiring the richer markup in the full DTD. Of
course, maybe you are suggesting that simplifying the CD 1.1 DTD won't
make it any easier to learn and is not worth pursuing.
 
Finally, are you concerned that some features of the proposed simplified
CD 1.1 DTD make it an improper subset of the full DTD? If there are some
specific "bloopers" in the simplified Court Document DTD, please let us
know what they are. I'm much more receptive to correction from my
friends than from strangers.
 
Thanks for sharing the comments.
 
Rolly

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Bergeron, Donald L. (LNG) 
	Sent: Mon 9/9/2002 7:56 AM 
	To: 'John Messing'; legalxml-courtfiling@lists.oasis-open.org 
	Cc: Bergeron, Donald L. (LNG) 
	Subject: RE: [legalxml-courtfiling] Salt Lake minutes
	
	

	Thank you John for your posting. I think that it will go far in
increasing
	understanding.
	
	On the specific issue of subsetting the DTD, I have a concern.
The overall
	LegalXML model as expressed by Todd Vincent and reiterated many
times is
	that this dtd is over-inclusive but optional to cover as many
conditions as
	practical and to not place unnecessary constrains on any
jurisdiction using
	this dtd.
	
	If there is a way of always getting a proper subset of a dtd,
and validating
	that condition well we may use it. Some of the approaches that
you mention
	can provide part of this service. However, the part that it is
always a
	proper subset is at risk as humans modify the parameter entities
on which
	most of these are based. Only one method, the Architectural
Forms approach
	has the concepts needed. This approach is not present in most
commercial
	software nor is it likely to as it has regretfully fallen out of
favor. This
	may be remedeiated W3C Schema World, although I am not sure of
this. This
	constraint should be looked upon as a requirement for CF 2.0.
During the
	implementation, if the requirement can not be met we can address
it as a
	change control to the requirements.
	
	Beyond this, the constraints of the set has always been a goal
and
	requirement of the court policy standards. This is only part of
the policy
	requirements, but it is a part. One should think setting
constraints that
	are jurisdiction specific in a way that is localized in one
place. This
	allows the person developing the constraints to look at the full
constraint
	set so that it can be balanced and tuned. When you spread the
validation to
	two functions that are invisible to one another you increase the
very human
	risk of getting it wrong.
	
	This should be further studied during the research needed to
implement the
	requirements of court policy 1.0.
	
	
	Regards,
	
	Don Bergeron - Chair - Court Policy Sub-committee

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