[tei-council] Conformance .... the continuing saga

[Syd Bauman]

> Should we actively support non-Conformant methods of doing things,
> or simply have a short notice that there are other ways to do it
> with some descriptions?

I think this is analogous to use of start= of <schemaSpec>. If you
specify <schemaSpec start="div">, you end up with a schema that will
only mark as valid documents that are definitionally non-conformant
(because they have no header). The system supports doing so, because
it is often a *really* big help when making test files, etc. But it
isn't part of a TEI Conformant system. Similarly, you can stitch
together a schema from Relax NG fragments when it is more convenient
to do so (you're experimenting, you're on an airplane w/o access to
Roma, etc.). But the result is non-conformant, and we shouldn't spend
a lot of effort (if any) describing how to do this.


> > (a) we are currently generating and distributing them
> Not a good enough reason to keep doing so

Agreed. IMHO distributing parametrized DTD fragments is not only a
waste of Sebastian's time (although he points out not much), it is
potentially confusing to a DTD user who hasn't read the Guidelines
carefully, but remembers extending P4!


> > (b) we haven't told anyone we intend to stop doing so
> Political, but again, P5 is such a big change

No problem. We'll tell 'em now. (Or at release 0.7.)


> > (c) people e.g. wendell might want to use them
> Those who don't care about Conformance? And nothing to stop them
> using that locally, but producing versions that do the same thing
> in an ODD.

Wendell will want to stitch together Relax NG, sure, but who wants to
use parametrized DTDs? Remember, doing so is going to give you all
sorts of namespace headaches.


> > (d) it's (probably) less work to add some stuff about relaxng than to
> > completely remove all the stuff about DTDs
> I can't really judge that.

Whether we add Relax NG info or not, we should remove stuff about
using parametrized DTDs. It's a bad idea.

Perhaps a discussion of how to stitch together TEI Relax NG schema
fragments should be the subject of a white paper, and not in the
Guidelines?