Re: [office-metadata] So where do we stand?

["Bruce D'Arcus" <bdarcus@gmail.com>]

Hi Rob,

Here's my opinion. Perhaps Michael or Svante can confirm (or not)?

note: I wrote this before Svante sent his reply, but I think it  
mostly confirms his position, which is good! Will wait to see if  
Svante comes up with somthing that reflects consensus, and welcome  
his interest in doing so. That said I'll send this for the record ...

On Feb 13, 2007, at 9:45 AM, robert_weir@us.ibm.com wrote:

> 1)  Do we have a consensus on a metadata model and bindings into  
> ODF?  If so, what is it?

Let me break that apart into three aspects:

i. we have have consensus on the model
ii. we have consensus on an RDFa-like approach (to bind content to  
model) to be constrained to specific contexts (like a new metadata  
field, and the already approved citation field that's been sitting on  
the sidelines for the past two years)
iii. we have not (yet, AFAIK) agreed on *display* binding

So the recent discussion has reflected some disagreement on iii. Am  
not sure if Michael and/or Svante have changed their thinking more  
recently or not.

> 2) If there is no consensus, then, what proposals are we currently  
> considering?
>
> 3) Is this going to be the kind of decision which will be reached  
> by consensus, or will this come down to a vote?  In other word, are  
> we converging on a consensus, or are we circling around the campfire?

This I don't really know. I'd say if Michael and Svante still want to  
require XForms/XPath to do display binding, then we will not have  
consensus. Likewise, I don't think I'd support formally constraining  
the syntax with MUST language (using RELAX NG and such).

I have for the past month been saying that if we don't have consensus  
on everything, we ought to just isolate the point(s) of disagreement  
and vote:

a. to approve the parts we already agree on (most of it)
b. between two (or more) proposals for the parts that we don't agree on.

Bruce