Metadata extensibility ballot

I thought it might be useful to reiterate some of the main arguments supporting each of the options in the extensibility ballot. It’s a complex area, but a number of good points were raised during Tuesday’s call. Since there was no support
 for “namespaces only”, it’s clear that there is strong support for elements to a greater or lesser degree. Our preference is for a definitive decision in this area, rather than a hybrid approach.

 

My colleagues and I voted for ‘elements only’, as we see more benefits with this approach and it fits the majority of the business scenarios we’ve considered. Here’s a summary of how we perceived the arguments for both sides.

 

Elements only

Elements + namespaces

·        
Simplify the XLIFF 2.0 solution by having a single, clear option instead of 2 competing options. It’s clear from XLIFF 1.2 that choice leads to fragmented
 support

·        
Tools providers only have to support one extensibility method, not two (we won’t force them to choose which)

·        
Ability for standardization/interoperability of extensible metadata via commonly typed metadata types

·        
Greater predictability and integrity of XLIFF content; the open nature of namespaces risks introducing invalid data to files

·        
XLIFF 2.0 will require migration and conversion of data anyway; moving away from namespaces is one such activity

·        
Companies have already invested in namespaces; we don’t want them to dump these solutions

·        
There are scenarios where namespaces is a better solution than elements. We can specify clear use cases to recommend when to use either

 

Thanks,

Kevin.