Re: Updated summary from I18N on 'XML Literals'

Hi Martin,

Thanks for clarifying your view of the process issues here.  I'm in a
bit of a bind.  I don't accept some of the points you make, but I don't
see much value in a procedural wrangle.

Brian

On Thu, 2003-07-10 at 00:35, Martin Duerst wrote:

[...]
> 
> Procedural
> ----------
> 
> - It is our understanding that RDF Core was chartered with
>    clarifying the RDF M&S spec, not changing it.
>  Already by
>    separating plain literals and XML literals, and much more
>    by removing language information from XML literals, the
>    new spec is a clear change from M&S, rather than a
>    reinterpretation.
> 
> - We agreed in Cannes that the ambiguity in M&S that RDF applications
>    may or may not consider language information would be resolved
>    to that the RDF graph would provide the language information.
> 
> - Later, RDF Core asked us about the problem of integrating
>    arbitrary pieces of XML without language information into
>    an RDF/XML document. The same problem was brought up by
>    XML Signature (or was it encryption) and SOAP. The I18N
>    WG recognized this problem, checked with the experts on
>    language tagging standards, and recommended to XML Core
>    to issue an erratum to define xml:lang="" for this case,
>    which they did.
> 
> - Later, RDF Core asked about the applicability of language
>    information to datatypes such as (XML Schema) integer.
>    We told them that these were designed as language- and
>    locale-independent datatypes, and so it would be appropriate
>    to specify that they did not carry language information.
> 
> - Although this was rather implicit (in the sense of a common
>    understanding that didn't have to be made explicit), I think
>    neither side ever assumed that removing language information
>    from XML Schema simple datatypes would affect plain literals
>    or XML literals.
> 
> - After last call, RDF Core asked us whether we would be okay
>    with removing language information from XML literals. It was
>    nice for them to ask, but it also clearly indicates that they
>    understood it to break our previous agreement. We had a look
>    at it and decided that, for the reasons explained above, it
>    would not be okay. It also helped us to understand that the
>    RDF M&S design for literals had been changed rather substantially,
>    with undesired consequences for internationalization, and that
>    ideally, more than just putting language information back on
>    XML literals was needed, but that if really necessary, we
>    could live with only that change back (to the last call state).

Received on Thursday, 10 July 2003 08:43:18 UTC