WG4's handling of DR-09-0248 - General: Removing the need for qualifiers on attributes in Strict

[MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given)]

> But without such note or note saying "do not yet implement OOXML Strict,
> it will be substantially changed in next amendments" it will be really
> bad to change to unqualified attributes after say one year. That would
> mean that we will introduce to Strict as defined in IS 29500 two
> backward incompatible changes -- firstly namespace change and secondly
> after some time we will move WordprocessingML attributes from this
> namespace.

True.  But suppose that we give up again next time.  Then such a note 
in the first amendment will be really harmful.

> Is it really necessary to include all 800 modified pages into amendment?
> Isn't it sufficient to just describe in general what is changed and
> adapt schemas. Examples spread over the standard can be modified later
> when next complete version of amended standard is published. I think
> that concise amendment not showing all changes as change tracked text is
> better then confusion created by constantly changing Strict schema.

The reason that WG4 in Copenhagen decided not to incorporate the change
is the sheer amount of required changes.  You are now arguing that such 
changes would be nice but not mandatory.  Since the change in reply to
08-0012 is likely to have similar instructions (i.e., interpret all examples 
in Part 1 using different namespaces), you might have a point.

Usually, I am not willing to revisit decisions of WG4.  But if you and 
Mohamed are willing to provide change text to be incorporated and some
people support the idea, WG4 might be willing to revisit this decision. 

Cheers,
Makoto