non-Gregorian dates are desirable

 > Definition: ] The dateTime datatype ...
 > Issue (non-gregorian-dates): Both standards are limited to Gregorian 
dates. As an internalization issue, do we want support for non-gregorian 
dates? This issue also applies to [date], [time] and [timePeriod].

 From the perspective of an academic research project which is encoding 
information which crosses various boundaries (such as Julian ("Old 
Style")/Gregorian dates, and divergent years of implementation of the 
reform across Europe), support for non-Gregorian dates and a standard means 
to refer all encoded dates to a single (UTC-type) reference would be highly 
desirable.

The whole notion of data-typing is highly desirable for our project, which 
is using SGML encoding (as well as database representation) of our research 
results; the absence of such control is SGML is a major headache for us.


Terry Butler
Co-Investigator, the Orlando Project
An Integrated History of Women's Writing in the British Isles
www.ualberta.ca/Orlando