Re: [office-metadata] Rough notes (I won't call them minutes just yet)

[Michael Brauer <Michael.Brauer@Sun.COM>]

Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
> 
> On Feb 7, 2007, at 10:22 AM, Michael Brauer wrote:
> 
>> Well, I think the question is whether we add the meta data attributes 
>> and elements to the schema or not.
> 
> Actually, it's more than this:
> 
> 1) do we add the metadata attributes to the content.xml schema?
> 
> 2) do we add RELAX NG validation of the RDF/XML in the package?
> 
> I vote yes for 1, and no for 2 (though with some guidelines about best 
> practices).

I agree (but of cause, we have to define which attributes we add for 1)
> 
>> If we add them to the schema, then an application is able to know 
>> whether a certain attribute is meta data or not.
> 
> True.
> 
>> If we don't add them to the schema, then this is in fact not the case. 
>> But how do you add meta data support to an application if you don't 
>> know what meta data looks like and where it may occur?
>>
>> So, basically what I am requesting is to add the meta data attributes 
>> explicitly to the schema, and to not make any assumption about 
>> attributes and elements not defined in the schema, even though they 
>> may be meta data for some applications.
> 
> OK, if you agree with me up top.

I agree.

> 
> ...
> 
>> For this reason: It is fine to say that an application *may* preserve 
>> arbitrary elements and attributes, and it is of cause reasonable to 
>> actually preserve these elements in many cases, but it is probably not 
>> a good idea to say that arbitrary elements and attributes *should* or 
>> *shall* be preserved in general.
> 
> Would you agree it might make sense in some contexts to require 
> preservation? E.g. say we define a new metadata field and say something 
> like "one may use foreign-attributes to for parameters setting" or some 
> such. Is that OK?

I don't have an opinion for this case (I would need to know that exact 
definition of a metadata field), but in general, I agree. Actually, we 
have a language like this already for the document meta data, and for 
styles, so it would be nothing new.

> 
> Bruce

Michael