Re: [office-metadata] Suggested Changes on the Metadata proposal

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

On Jun 29, 2007, at 10:06 AM, Michael Brauer - Sun Germany - ham02 - 
Hamburg wrote:

> 1. We have to make sure that the language we are choosing is precise, 
> and permits reasonable edit operations on documents. Related to 
> xml:ids, that means that the language must permit to remove the 
> attribute or to change its values if this happens as the result of a 
> user action or a machine processing the document.

Right.

> 2. If a document is opened and saved again, we all expect that the 
> paragraph content is preserved. The same applies to tables, lists, 
> images. etc.

Does this include attributes?

> Does the specification has a language that enforces
> that? No, it doesn't. But we all expect that these features are 
> preserved anyway.
> But what's different with the xml:id (and metadata in general) that
> there is the assumption that it may get removed unless there is a
> language that forbids that?

The bottomline is, because we move so much of the RDF logic into the 
package, the xml:id attributes become crucial anchor points. In short, 
if an application removes, say, the xml:id from a text:meta-field or 
otherwise causes the URI binding to be invalid, the field will break. 
It would be bad for interoperability for applications to do this.

...

> 3. The focus of ODF of course are office documents. But there always 
> was the assumption that also other kind of applications should be able 
> to use ODF. So, if someone develops a small text editor and wishes to 
> support ODF to the extend that typical text editors can, this should 
> be be possible. Our language should not prohibit that. We should also 
> not forget the various ODF plug-in efforts for MS Office or similar 
> ODF implementations. They have only limited control of what happens 
> with certain information during complex load, edit and save operations 
> within MS Office. I'm not sure if they can preserve all metadata and 
> all xml:ids under all circumstances in a way that keeps the metadata 
> consistent and therefore of value.

Well, let's say an application doesn't care about metadata. All they 
have to do is preserve the files in the package and the xml:ids as is. 
They need not do any kind of processing.

I don't see how this is any real burden (?).

> Having that said, here are my suggestions. Please do not consider them 
> as a proposal. They are only suggestions, and the SC may follow them 
> as a whole or partially, or may not.
>
> 1. We may move all the metadata related should/shall language into the 
> general conformance section. This has the advantage that it is not 
> overlooked as easy as it would be if it is in the element and 
> attribute description. It further has the advantage that metadata is 
> mentioned at a very prominent position.
> 2. We may introduce the term of a metadata-aware application (or 
> something like that), and define conformance definitions along the 
> following lines for it:

I think the rules should apply to all ODF 1.2 compliant applications. 
Carving out a separate category of "metadata aware" leaves a large 
loophole.

On that basis, perhaps option 1 is preferable, where the language 
remains "shall." I'd go even further, n fact, and require preservation 
of all attributes. That makes it a generic requirement that is not 
specific to metadata, but ensures xml:id preservation.

Bruce

> - A metadata aware ODF implementation *shall* not remove the xml:id 
> attributes defined in sections [?] or change its values unless the 
> removal or modification is the result of an edit operation caused be 
> the user, or a similar action taken by some automatic processing of 
> the document.
> - [any other requirement that may exist]
> 3. We may rephrase the above statement for general ODF implementation, 
> replacing the *shall* with a *should*:
> - An ODF implementation *should* not remove the xml:id attributes 
> defined in sections [?] or change its values unless the removal or 
> modification is the result of an edit operation caused be the user, or 
> a similar action taken by some automatic processing of the document.
> 4. Some time ago we have discussed whether the question which 
> implementation should/shall support what features may be a topic for 
> ODF 1.3. So we may go with no or only a very limited number of 
> metadata related conformance requirements for ODF 1.2, and make a 
> deeper discussion part of a more general discussion for ODF 1.3.
>
> Maybe these comments and suggestions are somehow useful.
>
> Best regards
>
> Michael
>
>
> Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
>> Svante,
>> I suggest these go to the main TC list. This one, in particular ...
>> On 6/27/07, Svante Schubert <Svante.Schubert@sun.com> wrote:
>>> VIII) Adjust 'shall' requirement to 'should' for xml:id
>>>
>>> "All implementations SHALL preserve any xml:id attribute and its 
>>> value
>>> when present on any of the elements listed in 1.4.3."
>>>
>>> Similar as other standards (e.g. CSS) we should not try to force
>>> features by specification, but should let the market sort this out.
>>> Moreover the specification could be interpreted that it is even
>>> forbidding to delete the xml:id or its value, even when deleting the
>>> content, therefore a 'SHOULD' is sufficient.
>> ... has major implications. I'm not at all willing to accept this
>> without some serious discussion with the entire TC.
>> Bruce
>
>
> -- 
> Michael Brauer, Technical Architect Software Engineering
> StarOffice/OpenOffice.org
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