Re: [office-metadata] final updates

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

On 7/2/07, marbux <marbux@gmail.com> wrote:

...

>  It says nothing whatsoever about conformance. And an implementation that
> ignores the recommendation is still conformant. Are you confusing the SHOULD
> definition that actually applies with the RFC 2119 definition of SHOULD?
>
> >>>
> 3. SHOULD This word, or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there
>  may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a
>  particular item, but the full implications ***must*** be understood and
>
>  carefully weighed before choosing a different course.
>
> <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt>
>
> <<<

I am meaning something like the above.

...

> > That's not quite right, but I can't think of anything better. It at
> > least gets away from worrying about the specific structure of the
> > files, and focusses on the content, and it make implementors aware of
> > the issue even if they don't implement metadata support.
> >
>
> You are giving away an interoperability conformance requirement, Bruce.

I don't think so. I agree with the consensus that we cannot reasonably
mandate preservation of xml:id or other attributes in the spec.

The metadata proposal has gotten to its final (I think quite sound)
state through a lot of hard work at consensus building in this
committee. The final product is in fact a reflection of that
collaborative work.

I think in practice it'll work out quite fine. In the past couple of
days I've seen public commitments from two major implementors to
support the metadata proposal; I'm happy to work with them so they do
the right thing on the details.

If they do the wrong thing, they'll hear from me :-)

Bruce