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Subject: Re: [office] Re: [office-metadata] Suggested Changes on the Metadataproposal
- From: robert_weir@us.ibm.com
- To: "OASIS Office" <office@lists.oasis-open.org>
- Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2007 16:54:32 -0400
I suppose I should throw in my $.02.
First, we should remember that ODF mandates
behavior at several levels. The schema itself encodes requirements
in terms of what elements or attributes are optional or mandatory, what
nesting is permitted, what restrictions there are on data types, etc.
And then the normative text of the standard, along with external normative
references, make additional provisions by the use of "shall"
and "shall not". But note that in that case,the provision
is only applicable to those who implement that feature. A "shall"
concerning the calculation of the SUM() spreadsheet function may be totally
ignored by someone who is implementing a word processor only. Finally,
we have the conformance clause, that defines which features and additional
constraints are required for conformance with the standard.
Today our conformance clause designates
requirements for conformant documents, conformant applications that read,
conformant applications that write, and conformant applications that both
read and write.
As you may already know, OASIS has added
a new requirement for all OASIS standards:
"A specification that is approved
by the TC at the Public Review Draft, Committee Specification or OASIS
Standard level must include a separate section, listing a set of numbered
conformance clauses, to which any implementation of the specification must
adhere in order to claim conformance to the specification (or any optional
portion thereof) "
When we make the changes required for
the new OASIS rules, I suggest we think about conformance in general, and
consider making a more substantial statement. For example, we could define
things at a more granular level: a conformant ODF spreadsheet shall
support workbooks of at least a single sheet, with at least 100 rows and
25 columns and at least the Group 1 spreadsheet functions. (Just
an example, not a real proposal). So we have the opportunity to specify
multiple levels of conformance, either in the main text, or as separate
profiles.
To the specific question at hand, I
am concerned with the loose use of the word "preserve." What
exactly does that mean? For example, must the xml:id's of the saved
document be lexically identical to the read document? Or are looser
version of equivalence allowed? For example, if the id originally
is "foo" and then it is saved with the id "bar" is
that permitted, provided that the structure and referential integrity of
the id and references are maintained? Remember, it will be common
for an application to read an XML document and convert id's and links into
internal runtime representations that are not at all similar to the XML.
Id/references might be converted into C-language pointer references
between objects, etc. Then when writing out the document, new unique
ID's might be generated on-the-fly, perhaps in sequential order. This
might vary from implementation to implementation. Beyond referential
integrity, I don't know if there is any additional value in saying that
a document created in KOffice must have identical ID labels when that document
is later saved in OpenOffice.
We should also note that it is a feature
of some programs, such as Office 2007, to have a menu item specifically
for removing metadata from a document, for privacy and security reasons.
I don't think we want to prevent such an application from claiming
conformance.
So we need to be need to be very careful
how we word this. Perhaps something like "Conforming applications
that read and write documents shall be capable of "preserving"
xml:id's, etc." With the proviso that "preserving"
needs a better definition, this ensures that conforming applications support
preservation, while also allowing that not every mode of use may actually
do so, such as when a user deletes content or metadata, etc.
-Rob
________________
Rob Weir
Software Architect
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Software Group
email: robert_weir@us.ibm.com
phone: 1-978-399-7122
blog: http://www.robweir.com/blog/
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