Notes from TEI Council Conference Call of 08 July 05

Call started at 13:03 UTC with

• Syd Bauman
• Lou Burnard
• James Cummings
• Matthew Driscoll
• Julia Flanders
• Sebastian Rahtz
• Natasha Smith
• Perry Willet
• Christian Wittern

Review of ActionsThe following action items from the previous minutes were reviewed:JC: stylesheet HOWTO

• • Progress has been made, although the document is not finished. Parts of the underlying technology that the document describes may be changing soon. Unless there are major such changes, James expects the stylesheet HOWTO to be complete by 01 Aug.JC Finish HOWTO for stylesheet module 2005-08-01

MD: post summary of comments received on MS, with proposed responses

• • The summary of comments received was posted immediately before the conference call, and a more thorough one is expected in one week. MD post more thorough version of comments received, and also proposed responses 2005-07-15 The comments received so far identify lots of small problems, but no major issues overlooked or gotten wrong were pointed out. Lots of classic problems that have been discussed repeatedly were also brought up. In addition, there were reports of problems (in particular missing features) that were false, i.e. the system does permit the desired encoding; this indicates either that the reviewer did not carefully read the documentation, or that the documentation insufficient. It was suggested, without dissent, that MD produce a consolidated report addressing comments received divided into those three broad categories: corrections made, documentation improved, well-trodden paths.

MD revisions to manuscript description chapter

• • Due before members meeting, MD certainly hopes it will be done by then

Roma under Windows

• • deferred, AB not present

P5 instructions for XMetal & XMLSpy

• • deferred, AB not present

JW: P5 instructions for oXygen

• • Have been posted to list and then to TEI website. JW will be adding a section on handling already existing files (as opposed to creating new ones) on the basis of useful feedback from JC.

MD: create some examples demonstrating the different approaches (of assassinating attributes)

• • MD had not done so, in the belief that the examples included in footnotes 2, 3, & 4 of the minutes from the Paris meeting were sufficient. LB would like examples that are of real encodings of real-world problems. LB look at list of attributes that need to be assassinated, report back to Council which ones are trivial (e.g., because element is empty and there is only 1 such attribute), not difficult, or present real problems that might need this approach 2005-08-01

SB: attributes & datatypes

• • Discussion deferred to below.

JF & PW: post discussion of various methods for handling reg of the various naming elements

• • Not completed yet, but JF & PW expect to post by end of day today.

LB: Report on progress of discussions of index attributes

• • Done.

JF & EV: rationalization of cert attribute

• • JF reports that with EV having dropped out and no one stepping up to replace him, she has been somewhat delayed. Nonetheless, she is hoping to send out a draft by next week. JF post draft document discussing rationalization of cert attribute (see first item in section Some open issues of previous minutes). 2005-07-16

SB: make all resp attributes into pointers

• • Scheduled for end of August, still planning to do so then.

LB: research whether loc performs the same function as cref

• • LB reports this has not been done; will do so before next call. LB Report to Council on results of research whether loc performs the same function as cref1 week before next call

SB & DD: finish SA discussions of XPointer

• • SB reports this was deliberately delayed due to attribute & datatype project. Syd & David have a meeting scheduled for Mon 11 Jul. CW is looking for a plan for how we expect to move forward on surrounding issues (e.g., MIME type and XPointer schema registry). SB with DD produce brief report on process for getting XPointer schemes registered 2005-07-22

SB: fix P5 bibliography using bibl, report on usability of bibl

• • SB reports, like SA, deliberately delayed due to attribute & datatype project.SB BIBL 2005-09-08

JW & NS: quick report on progress of the header element mapping

• • A very brief report has been posted. JW reports that they are not expecting to recommend actual significant changes to header, but do expect to recommend the need for, and to write, instructions on using namespaces and where to put other metadata. CW wonders of TEI documents should point to their parent METS documents.

CW: Look at current epigraphical standards, report findings

• CW has made some progress and posted results. CW had informed the epiDoc project folks of the project in HD and a plan to produce a customization for that project, with a focus on how to describe the objects. Tom Elliot responded today and said that this sounds interesting. He sent some information about what he and others are doing and said that their main aim is more towards a best practice approach, in other words to guide epigraphers with the encoding, rather than with the description. There are, according to Tom, debates about where to put the descriptive metadata (header vs. body) and how to do them, so any development here would be welcome. He was also happy seeing the TEI move in this direction and would welcome (and collaborate on) a possible epDescription chapter in the future.

Review of WG etc. progress

Standoff MarkupSee

Feature StructuresLB reports that chapter is still out for review in ISO process. Meeting to resolve comments garnered during this process will be Mon 22 Aug in Warsaw. Physical BibliographyJF reports that Murray McGillivray has hit the ground running, posting several interesting questions in the past few days. JF has responded and will ping others in the group to respond or to drop out.JF wants to know how closely PB should interact with MS. It was pointed out that most of the work of MS is currently in the hands of its chair (MD), and that further work is needed. It was also pointed out that the MS chapter has gaps, including collation, which it would make sense for PB to fill. CW suggests PB report to Council, which can then see if they wish to charter new group or take other action.

biblItemSB reports that per request of Council he has made no effort in this area, pending the results of the BIBL action item (see ).

IHSItem was covered in , above.

P5 progress

principles for publication of snapshotsAfter some discussion, there was general agreement that Sourceforge releases (as opposed to the continuing maintenance in the CVS tree) of the source ODDs, the derived HTML, and the stylesheets that convert the former to the latter can be made without explicit Council approval. There were three suggestions on when such releases would occur: a pre-defined timetable; when significant updates occur or have accrued, based on the editors' judgement; and at Sebastian's readiness to do so. This issue was left unresolved, but it was agreed by all that a new release should be orchestrated very soon, probably within a week or two.Eds ensure that P5 is in sufficient condition for a release 2005-07-19SR after Eds give go-ahead, create new release 2005-07-22It was generally agreed that the HTML version of P5 that is available on the TEI website should be the same as the most recent Sourceforge released version.

directory layoutCouncil agreed to pursue the two-directory structure recently outlined by SR, presuming Debian does not object. SB & SR will hammer out the details over the weekend in the hopes of having a structure ready (for use by SyncRO Soft) by Monday.SR & SB Hammer out details of directory layout 2005-07-11

infrastructure for translations of gloss and descNot discussed.

on Attributes and DatatypesConcern was expressed over the use of W3C pattern facets, particularly in the datatype tei.data.duration. There was disagreement about the general principle of whether or not the TEI should force itself to stick to strict W3C datatypes, but it was clear that the issue required more discussion.It was generally agreed that further evaluation of the proposals would be needed before fruitful discussion could occur. It was suggested (separately) that these issues be resolved both at the class meeting at the end of September and before that meeting.

Other businessCouncil agreed that an element to go inside figure and contain binary data was acceptable. However, the consensus was to use a more descriptive name than bob. It was suggested we look at what METS calls binary objects.Council placed a standing action on the editors to produce list of changes that have been made to (the CVS source tree of) P5 one week before each conference call or meeting of Council.

Next CallSeveral dates were discussed, without final resolution.

Call ended at approximately 14:30.