Re: [office-comment] ODF 1.1: 3.3

[jose lorenzo <hozelda@yahoo.com>]

--- On Thu, 7/10/08, jose lorenzo <hozelda@yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: jose lorenzo <hozelda@yahoo.com>
> Subject: [office-comment] ODF 1.1: 3.3
> To: office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
> Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008, 12:36 AM
> Propose changing the second sentence of ODF 1.1 section 3.3
> 
> from:
> "As there is no semantics specified for such foreign
> content, applications need not process this information
> other than to preserve it when editing the document."
> 
> to:
> "As there is no semantics specified for such foreign
> content, applications thefreedictionary.com/need
> 
> need  (nd)
> n.
> 1. A condition or situation in which something is required
> or wanted
> 
> http://www.thefreedictionary.com/should
> 
> should
> aux.v. Past tense of shall
> 1.  Used to express obligation or duty: You should send her
> a note.
> 2.  Used to express probability or expectation: They should
> arrive at noon.
> 
> ODF 1.1 section 1.2 in conjunction with the "Alternate
> keywords" section of
> http://docs.oasis-open.org/templates/TCHandbook/ConformanceGuidelines.html
>  (in lieu of the ISO/IEC directive I was not able to find)
> specify the meaning of a *bold faced* "should" to
> mean "to indicate that among several possibilities one
> is recommended as particularly suitable, without mentioning
> or excluding others."
> 
> But note that "should" is not bold faced in
> section 3.3 sentence 1, so we are left with a definition
> that itself either means something like
> "obligation" (def 1 above) or something like
> "expectation" (def 2 above). Leading one to
> wonder, if we are expected to do this, does this mean we
> are obligated as well?
> 
> HOWEVER, section 1.5 separately states:
> "conforming applications should preserve meta
> information" ("should" is not bold faced),
> 
> and:
> "elements contained within the <office:meta>
> element may have arbitrary element content and should be
> preserved (see section 2.2.1)" (should IS bold faced,
> meaning recommendation or expectation BUT NOT requirement
> or obligation).
> 
> Section 2.2.1 says:
> "Custom metadata are arbitrary elements inside
> <office:meta>. Since their semantics is not defined
> in this specification, conforming applications in general
> cannot process or display this data. Applications should
> preserve this data when editing the document." Here
> "should" IS bold faced.
> 
> Based on 1.2, 1.5, and 2.2.1, my best guess is that the
> first sentence of 3.3 specifies recommendation not
> requirement (via dictionary definition 2), and so perhaps a
> recommendation would be to make the change proposed at the
> top of this email (to either of the two alternatives given
> or to something similar).
> 
> Sorry, for the long discussion over a minor issue, but I
> wanted to pre-empt a back and forth email interchange and
> possibly even save the readers a bit of time hunting down
> some of the applicable passages. The issue is actually not
> that minor for implementers that would prefer to have both
> a conforming application and as reduced a feature set as
> possible, and the proposed fix is very small, almost at the
> level of a typo.
> 
> Also, I have not read the whole spec to know what other
> changes might need to be made.
> 
> [Aside: At this point, I have only done a very small amount
> of light reading, but from what I have seen so far, I
> can't be certain that the references above to
> "application" imply "conforming
> applications".]
> 
> 
> 
>       
> 
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