Pruning XHTML2 for eContracts

[Jason Harrop <jharrop@speedlegal.com>]

Hi everyone, and happy new year.

In preparation for this week's teleconf, I've spent a bit of time looking at 
what we could do to tailor XHTML2 to suit contract structures.

A draft of the result is attached, in the original OpenOffice format (.sxw), and 
as converted to .doc (it'll be 8 hours or so before i can open this in Word to 
verify it looks okay).

For quick preview, I've pasted the summary below.

cheers,

Jason

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Assuming the TC is to use XHTML2 to represent the structure of a contract, it 
needs to consider to what extent to tailor XHTML2 to meet its needs.

It is useful to be able to identify what level of conformance the TC is seeking 
to achieve, and to articulate why. This paper seeks to identify the advantages 
and disadvantages pertaining to the “Host Language” and “Integration Set” levels.

This paper shows that there are various significant problems from an authoring 
perspective, which, based on the current draft of XHTML 2, can't be addressed 
while retaining conformance at either of those 2 levels.

For this reason, it is suggested that if the TC is to use XHTML 2 as a 
foundation for its structural representation, we need to "prune" unwanted 
elements and attributes. What we end up with is what we might call a "Pruned” 
Host Language (or Integration Set).

Once you accept the need to prune elements and attributes, XHTML2 starts to look 
less daunting for lawyers and contract managers.

As a side benefit, it is shown that a "simple paragraph" interpretation of the 
“Pruned” DTD presented here is available, and that this addresses certain other 
ease-of-use concerns which I have previously raised.

PruningXHTML2.sxw

PruningXHTML2.doc