Re: [office-metadata] Re: preserving metadata (was deadlines?)

[marbux <marbux@gmail.com>]

On 5/16/07, Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net> wrote:
> Bruce,
>
> Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
>
> How about:
>
> "Applications that do not read or write to one or more metadata files
> must preserve those files. Metadata files that are written to by some
> application must be saved as specified by that application."
>
> Does that capture what we want to say?
>

Isn't there still a problem of discretion raised by the indefinite
"some application?" E.g., read literally, it leaves developers free to
decide they will preserve metadata files written to by "some" other
application but not those written to by other applications. How about:

"Applications that do not read or write to one or more metadata files
must preserve those files. Metadata files that are written to by any
other application must be saved as specified by that application."

But is there a need for exceptions and if so what wording is needed?
Food for thought:

* What if everything in the document relevant to the metadata file is
deleted by user action? Must the metadata file still be preserved?

* Do we need to distinguish between metadata that impacts interop and
other metadata and if so how?

* Do we need to specify that metadata created for interop purposes
must be written to a separate metadata file and come up with a
convention for applications to identify and handle them as such? I
have in mind here the use of metadata for interop subsets, suprasets,
and profiles. Hypothetical use cases to think about:

1. Web Editor Profile/Subset. KOffice developers and developers of
Ajax web editors (think Google Docs and Spreadsheets and similar apps)
agree on metadata to specify one or more profiles/interop subsets for
exchange of documents among their apps, using metadata. All formatting
elements and attributes needed for the purpose are included in ODF
1.2. OOo does not implement the profile. OOo receives and opens such a
file, processes user edits, and sends it back to an app that does
support the profile/subset. What must OOo do with the relevant
metadata and what language do we need to require it?

2. Citations Supraset. Same as use case 1 except that the same group
of developers plus the Zotero Firefox plug-in developers create a
supplement profile/supraset for interoperable bibliographic citations
using RDF and OOo does not implement the support for citations. See
<http://www.zotero.org/>. What must OOo do with all relevant metadata
and what language do we need to require it to do so?

3. Outliner Plus Citations Supraset. Same as use case 2 except that
the same group of developers and various outliner developers create
another profile/interop supraset that uses metadata to specify
processing and formatting instructions not supported by OOo. See list
and descriptions of common outliner features at
<http://outliners.expandingbrain.com/doku.php?id=outliner_features>.
What must OOo do with all relevant metadata and what language do we
need to require it to do so?

I hope this helps.

Marbux