Suggestions how to align ODF metadata attributes with W3C RDFaattributes

[Svante Schubert <Svante.Schubert@Sun.COM>]

I would like to make a few suggestions how we might improve our 
alignment of in content metadata attributes to the upcoming RDFa 
standard [1].

   1. We should adopt attribute local names according to the latest
      draft of RDFa [1]. As the W3C invented I believe they have the
      authority to name it.
          *

            Rename data-type to datatype 
                  

          *

            Rename data-value to content 
                  

   2. We should adopt the RDFa CURI datatypes. ODF would benefit as well
      from the ease/shortage of writing and would avoid future
      incompatibilities.
   3. We should provide an own Oasis based namespace for the RDFa
      attributes in ODF (reason below).
      Adapt the prefix from 'm' to 'rdfa', changing the namespace
      'http://docs.oasis-open.org/opendocument/meta#' to
      'http://docs.oasis-open.org/opendocument/meta/rdfa#'

By suggesting an own namespace for the RDFa attributes in ODF, the 
attributes will be indeed different to the latest W3C RDFa attributes 
[1], which have currently no namespace as they have been drafted mainly 
for the use in HTML.

I believe that in the end we all desire to reference the W3C RDFa 
recommendation and reuse existing RDFa functionality and syntax, but I 
fear this is not possible for ODF 1.2 as I see the need of namespaces 
for ODF XML attributes to be able to avoid name clashes for the future.

Unfortunately even if there would be namespaces in the W3C draft, the 
ODF spec would not be able to use it now, as we are only allowed to 
reference stable standards, while the W3C RDFa spec is currently still a 
working draft and not a W3C Recommendation.
As well the solution to predefine a W3C namespace in the ODF spec is not 
an option as we as an OASIS group are not allowed to define a W3C namespace.

That leaves us to the option of an own namespace for RDFa attributes in 
ODF 1.2 and changing them later (for instance in ODF 1.3), after the W3C 
RDFa has become a standard using namespaced attributes to be reused for 
other XML vocabularies (e.g. as specified for the xlink attributes. We 
would than mark the previous ODF RDFa attribute set as deprecated.

The only official way for reusing the identical RDFa attributes in ODF 
1.2 is that the W3C RDFa group could provide us with a Recommendation 
before ODF 1.2 is finished and this is unlikely due to the time issue.

PS:
Although it is certainly up to the RDFa group to decide how to solve the 
problem between the HTML and XML community, it might be an option to 
define two attribute syntax for the same semantic. One without namespace 
for the HTML context and one with namespace for the XML vocabularies.

@all:
To make it possible to let the W3C, esp. Ivan, participate in this 
discussion I would further suggest to review and CC as well the office 
comments list [2] for this discussion.
Ivan, please reply on that public list if you would like to make a comment.

Regards,
Svante


[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdfa-syntax/
[2] For subscription instruction use 'Send a comment' button on 
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office

-- 
Sun Microsystems GmbH           Svante Schubert
Nagelsweg 55                    Software Engineer
20097 Hamburg                   StarOffice / OpenOffice.org Development
Germany                         Phone: +49(0)40 236 46 500
http://www.sun.com              Svante.Schubert@sun.com

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