Making RELAX NG schemas normative rather than non-normative

[MURATA Makoto]

Dear colleagues,

We are going to consider this issue in Prague.  (If nothing
horrible about nuclear power supplies happen, I can attend.)

We discussed about this issue in Tokyo (only briefly) and
decided to discuss again in Prague.

Making the OOXML RELAX NG schemas normative does
not mean that XSD schemas become non-normative.  They
continue to be normative.

In my understanding, there are two implications in making
RNG schemas normative, and there are no other implications.

First, for OOXML documents to be conformant, validity against
normative RNG schemas will become a must.  But, as far as I know,
everything in OOXML RELAX NG schemas is stated either in
normative prose or XSD schemas.  More about this, see DR 10-0030.
I believe that  RELAX NG schemas were extensively tested
before the BRM, but I do not know whether they have been used
for validating OOXML documents since then.

Second, if the normative RELAX NG schemas are in conflict
with the XSD schemas or normative prose, OOXML will be
defective and we will be required to fix this defect.  I believe
that we have already assumed that such differences have
to be addressed.

Cheers,
Makoto <EB2M-MRT at asahi-net.or.jp>