C14N 1.1 editorial issues [was: Agenda for XML Core WG telcon of 2008 April 23]

I guess, since we were (supposedly) "just correcting
inheritance for xml:id", I never did an editorial-minded
pass on this spec.  I do think there are some things
that could (should) be fixed, but I consider them all
editorial enough to do at this time (but Henry, please
give your opinion).

Comments embedded below.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Henry S. Thompson [mailto:ht@inf.ed.ac.uk] 
> Sent: Wednesday, 2008 April 23 7:56
> To: Grosso, Paul
> Cc: public-xml-core-wg@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Agenda for XML Core WG telcon of 2008 April 23
> 
> Grosso, Paul writes:
> 
> > 3.  C14N 1.1
> >
> > See also http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/Core#c14n1.1
> >
> > The C14N 1.1 PR has been published at
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/PR-xml-c14n11-20080129/
> > and the PR review period is over.
> >
> > ACTION to Henry:  Lead the process of developing a
> > director's decision.
> 
> There was one negative review, whose comments read as follows:
> 
>     Please as it is only related to XML 1.0, please add it :
>     * to the name of the specification "Canonical XML for XML 1.0"

Since we are issuing a 1.1 version of an otherwise existing
spec, I don't feel it is appropriate to change the name to
add "for XML 1.0".

However, see below about "Version 1.1".

>     * in the normative reference of Namespaces for XML

I can agree to that.  The title of http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/
is "Namespaces in XML 1.0", so the reference at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/PR-xml-c14n11-20080129/#namespaces is,
in fact, incorrect not to read similarly.

We should change this in:

1.  the References
2.  the first para of the Intro (2 times)
3.  once each in each of the two paras of section 1.2
4.  once in section 4.8

> 
>     Not sure to fully unterstand 4.7 Propagation of Default Namespace
>     Declaration in Document Subsets
> 
>     It would be sure to have stated somewhere whether
>     canonical(canonical(xmlfile)) is equal to canonical(xmlfile)
> 
> Are we prepared to make any editorial changes to address these
> comments?  Our discussion two weeks ago suggested that we did think
> that canonical(canonical(xmlfile)) is equal to canonical(xmlfile), but
> it's not a stated conformance requirement.  We _could_ add a note
> to section 1.3 along the lines of
> 
>   Note: Although not stated as a requirement on implementations, nor
>   formally proved to be the case, it is the intent of this
>   specificaition that if the text generated by canonicalizing a
>   document according to this specification is itself parsed and
>   canonicalized according to this specification, the text generated by
>   the second canonicalization will be the same as that generated by
>   the first canonicalization.

I could live with that note (net s/specificaition/specification/).

> 
> Or we could be elitist and just say:
> 
>   Note: Although not stated as a requirement on implementations, nor
>   formally proved to be the case, it is the intent of this
>   specificaition that canonicalization is idempotent, that is, for any
>   well-formed XML document *D*,
>     canonicalize(canonicalize(*D*)) == canonicalize(*D*)

If we were being formal, I'd be okay with that formulation,
but since we admit we haven't formally proven anything--and,
especially, because the whole point of adding such a note is
to make something that should already be clear clearer--I
wouldn't endorse this version (elitist as I am at heart).

> 
> or . . .
> 
> The title is certainly open to misinterpretation.  We could change it
> to "Canonical XML, version 1.1", perhaps.

Yes, I agree in prinicple, though, comparing the title 
of http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n I think it would be
"Canonical XML Version 1.1".  

We should change this in:

1.  the document title
2.  the Abstract (3 places, one of which is for C14N 1.0)
3.  the Intro (5 places, two of which are for C14N 1.0)

---

Finally, the mention of "Canonical XML 1.0" in the first
sentence of the second paragraph of the Introduction (which
should be changed to read "Canonical XML Version 1.0") should
be followed by a reference to the C14N1.0 Recommendation and
the appropriate entry should be added to the References.  At
present, there is no reference to the C14N1.0 Rec in this
specification.  (There is a reference to a WD of the C14N1.0
spec which I'm not suggesting we remove at this time, but
especially in light of that, it seems too odd not to have a
reference to the actual C14N1.0 Rec.)

paul

Received on Wednesday, 23 April 2008 13:55:37 UTC