> Short version: The reluctance to adopt a SCHEME attribute on the META
> element for the Cougar draft of HTML[1] was based largely on a concern
> of potential conflicts with other metadata efforts within W3C.
> After some investigation, I find that this concern is unfounded, and
> I will try to make this clear to the involved folks so that the SCHEME
> proposal can go ahead.
Dan
Thanks for this message.
I must confess to a certain confusion over how W3C sees the metadata
architecture developing after the W3C sessions at Rutherford Labs in
January and WWW6 in April.
1 - Metadata may be embedded in HTML using the META tag - such as the
SCHEME proposal for DC.
2 - The use of PICS for storing metadata is being discussed by the PICS
WG [1].
3 - Digital signatures are a form of metadata. The use of PICS for
storing digital signatures (and assertions) is being discussed by
the DSig WG [2].
4 - Tranparent Content Negotiation (TCN) uses variant lists to describe
alternate formats for resources [3]
5 - Web Collections [4] describe relationships between resources.
6 - XML [5] has been proposed as a mechanism for use with PICS, Web
Collections (as well as Maths, CDF, etc).
There has already been some breakdown in communications over the SCHEME
proposal and the PICS WG. I am worried that once the other proposals
related to metadata get to the stage of being discussed by W3C Working
Groups we'll see similar confusion - potentially resulting in a lot of
wasted time and effort by those involved in producing various proposals.
I'm also worried that even if the proposals are accepted, as there are
potentially several ways of achieving the same effect, software vendors
will have the final say in deciding the winner.
For example if I have a resource available in HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2, HTML
with frames, PDF and English and French versions, I might want to use
web collections (so that a user agent can give a site view of all English
languge resources), the SCHEME proposal for embedding DC, TCN so that
browsers can transparentally choose an appropriate format, DSig (so that
I can assert that the document is a conforming HTML 3.2 document which
will run on a browser without any plugins on a 8 MB 486 PC) and PICS
(so that I can say it's contains no nudity).
>From a metadata management perspective this seems a nightmare.
Comments?
Thanks
Brian Kelly
References
1 http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/
2 http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Security/DSig/Overview.html
3 ftp://ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-http-negotiation-01.txt
4 http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/NOTE-XMLsubmit.html
5 http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/SGML/Activity
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Brian Kelly, UK Web Focus
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, England, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask] URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Phone: 01225 323943 FAX: 01225 826838
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