ODF 1.2 comment: metadata: Dublin Core

[rjelliffe@allette.com.au]

Part 1, S4.3.2  allows only 5 of the 15** Dublin Core elements.

Indeed, it is not allowed under the current rules to use other Dublin Core
elements. In general, foreign elements would be stripped out, however,
from s21.1 foreign elements may not use a namespace defined in the tables
in s1.5 which includes the Dublin Core namespace.

I suggest it should be a goal that ODF 1.2 conforms to Dublin Core at a
Level 2 (Formal semantic interoperability)*   I suggest it should also be
a goal that Dublin Core metadata can be readily round-tripped through ODF.

I have, in the course of work, come across some government departments
here in Australia who were interested in much stronger geocoding of data,
for example. The dc:coverage element is perfect for this.

SUGGESTION: All 15 Dublin Core elements should be defined in the ODF
schema and allowed. No cherry-picking is helpful.

If there are non-DC elements with the same meaning, the implementation
should duplicate them, following the XHTML practice. If there are non-DC
elements with the same meaning, the ODF TC may decide to prefer one, or
allow an implementation to strip out or rename or favour the non-DC
elements. But the *full set* of DC elements should be round-trippable in
the absence of particular treatment by an implementation. If there are
some DC elements which are regarded as bad, for some reason, they should
be deprecated rather than being disallowed.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe


* http://dublincore.org/metadata-basics/
** http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/

P.S. I note that Dublin Core is an ISO standard:

ISO 15836:2009  Information and documentation -- The Dublin Core metadata
element set

At time of writing, this is not one of the freebies: I don't know if the
necessary application has been made. However, the core is available from
DCMI as http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/  which the DCMI says is the
same text.