[emergency-msg] Review of CAP Issue #17

[Art Botterell <acb@incident.com>]

ISSUE: 17 - Proposal to make <category> mandatory

DESCRIPTION: The commenter suggests that many implementers have 
expressed interest in having a coded, machine-interpretable topic 
available in all messages.

PROPOSED CHANGE:  The commenter suggests that the <category> element 
be made mandatory within the <info> block.

DISCUSSION:  A large part of our reluctance to make <category> 
mandatory in CAP 1.0 stemmed from a concern that the taxonomy we were 
using had limited validation.  Since that time, as part of the EDXL 
project involving representatives of a wide array of response 
disciplines, a much more detailed taxonomy was developed which 
subdivided the CAP 1.0 values.  In the course of that process, it 
became clear that as a top-level scheme the current values are, in 
fact, valid.

The impact of this change would be minor modifications in the schema 
and in implementation software.  This impact will be lesser now than 
if this change were deferred.

RECOMMENDATION:  Make <category> mandatory in CAP 1.1