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Subject: RE: [legalxml-econtracts] Pruning XHTML2 for eContracts - draft 2
Hello and welcome Mary, XHTML is not intended to be used as the carrier of meta-information about the document. Meta-information is better carried in a different, companion document that is linked to the presentation document in a manner standardized by XHTML 2.0 (likely as a link in the header, or via XForms). I do agree with you about the "behind-the-scene" nature of schemas, but there is equally the strong desire to accommodate direct entry of contract markup -- that is, markup for a presentation document. It is quite useful to adopt XHTML 2.0 for this very purpose, as markup for presentation material. XHTML 2.0 is not useful in the context of a metadata document about the contract however. Certainly, with application of an XSL-T, a presentation document can be generated from the metadata document. However, direct entry of markup for a metadata document would involve exactly what many, including yourself, do not wish to see -- a dialect that is far greater than the perceived, immediate, needs of a contract author. By "pruning" XHTML 2.0, we can therefore deliver a "nimble" schema specific to the everyday task of creating the text content of a contract; we are therefore freed to develop a functionally-rich schema for the metadata ABOUT the contract. A lossless exchange of contract metadata is vital to a contract's negotiation, administration, and mediation. But this is a separate document == there is no intent whatsoever to "load up" XHTML elements in a presentation document with metadata attributes or metadata child elements and, hence, the need for a separate metadata document exists. There IS intent to establish a schema for a metadata document ABOUT the contract presentation document however... and there IS intent to establish a schema for a "clause library" that is not XHTML, but which may certainly include XHTML for markup of the text content of the clause and its sub-sections that is to be used when the library clause is selected to be cloned into an instance contract document. Hope that helps, John
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