Question about author/@type from ditaweb review

[Robert Anderson <robert.dan.anderson@oracle.com>]

Hi,

I wanted to pass along a question from the Ditaweb review about the author element. Author has defined the type attribute from DITA 1.0; it's one of many that define type in an inconsistent fashion.

It also defines href (and has since DITA 1.0). In DITA 1.3, we ensured that any element which defined href also had the other linking attributes (format / scope / type). So now we're left with a linking element that has type, but in this case type "specifies the type of author".

The question from the review was - if I set keyref, can I still set type? I think the answer is yes, but we're clearly in a weird spot that you could set keyref, but resolving that can pull in a type attribute that is not context appropriate.

The quickest fix here is probably to remove the special meaning for author/@type, but  keep the attribute there - it just becomes consistent with type on all other linking attributes. But, I think we need the TC to discuss that and see if it makes sense.

Thanks,

Robert