Manifest/Metadata requirements

Sorry I missed the call yesterday, but in reviewing the minutes on the various use cases, I see two of them that I would like to pick out for further discussions.

1 - As a reading system, I need to know the title and cover image to display the publication on a shelf without downloading all it's content.

In the case of a formal publication – such as a book or magazine – this certainly makes sense.  But as we consider the various informal use cases for PWPs, then such things wouldn’t be present.  So having a place for these things, should they exist, makes sense.  But we need to ensure that they aren’t requirements.


2 - As a reading system, I need to know if I need additional processing instructions, such as with MathML.

This is an example of a general category of things that I class as “the dangers of duplicated data”.

Anytime you have a “feature list” of a document/publication, you run the risk that it will not be properly maintained to match the actual content. What happens if the original version of a publication doesn’t use MathML but a chapter is added later on that contains it but the manifest isn’t updated?   A Reading System (in order to function properly) has to assume that the manifest’s list is wrong – and if it’s wrong, then why bother having it at all.

I would strongly recommend that we not go down this path.


Leonard