Re: [office-comment] MathML is now "foreign" / illogical conformance (ODF 1.2)

[Jesper Lund Stocholm <4a4553504552@gmail.com>]

Hi Alex,

2009/2/19 Alex Brown <alexb@griffinbrown.co.uk>:
>
> 1.4.5 states:
>
> "OpenDocument extended documents may contain elements and attributes not
> specified within the OpenDocument schema. Such elements and attributes
> are called foreign elements and attributes."
>
> Since the MathML elements and attributes are not "specified within the
> OpenDocument schema" they are - by definition - foreign. One
> interpretation of this is that no "conforming OpenDocument Document"
> (per 1.4.2.1) can contain mathematics.
>
> The ODF schema (all versions) allows *any* markup (foreign or native)
> for its "mathMarkup" pattern. This is a defect. The schema needs to be
> corrected to include a correct MathML grammar, irrespective of whether
> MathML is deemed to be "foreign" or not.

I don't agree with your interpretation of the conformance clauses in
ODF 1.2 and thereby not with your conclusion.

1.4.2.1 states:

  (D.1.2.2) The XML root elements of the sub documents shall be
        1.<office:document-content> or <math:math> for sub documents
named content.xml (...)

  (D.1.2.4) If the XML root element of a sub document is <math:math>,
then the XML root element shall be valid with respect to the MathML
2.0 [MathML] schema .

So MathML is clearly solidly placed in ODF.

Section 1.4.2.2 talks about extended documents and it says:

  (D.2.1.1) If the XML root element of a sub document is
<office:document-content>, <office:document-styles>,
<office:document-meta> or <office:document-settings>, then the XML
root element shall be valid with respect to the schema defined by this
specification, after the following processing of foreign elements has
taken place:
    1.Foreign elements and attributes, as defined in section [Document
Processing], have been removed.
    2.The content of foreign elements has been processed as defined in
section [Document Processing].

This also counts for "flat" ODF-packages, so it seems to me that you
can either use MathML-fragments in regular ODF packages as sub
packages or inline in the <office:document-content> markup.

Only thing left is that an ODF document containing MathML will not be
entitled to the categorisation of "a Conforming OpenDocument document"
but only the (a bit less prestiguous) "a Conforming OpenDocument
extended document". I personally consider this kind of weird, and I
would highly recommend ODF TC to include the MathML schema in ODF 1.2
to avoid this particular issue.

Jesper Lund Stocholm
www.idippedut.dk
WG4 - www.itscj.ipsj.or.jp/sc34/wg4/