the <md:ContactPerson> element

[Tom Scavo <trscavo@gmail.com>]

I have a number of questions about the <md:ContactPerson> element:

- If the contact is a real person, then <md:ContactPerson> works just
fine. But what if the contact is a non-person (such as an e-mail
list)? Was there ever any discussion of non-person contacts while the
metadata spec was being developed by the TC?

Various federation metadata files I've looked at shoehorn non-persons
into <md:ContactPerson> in their own unique way. Thus
<md:ContactPerson> turns out to be fairly useless as a standard way to
represent contact information.

- Why is the type of <md:EmailAddress> specified to be anyURI (instead
of an ordinary string)? I'll note that some federations use mailto:
URIs to represent e-mail addresses and some don't, but both seem to
validate okay.

- Why is the type of <md:ContactPerson> called md:ContactType (instead
of md:ContactPersonType)? This inconsistent naming suggests the intent
to reuse the type in some way.

Thanks in advance,
Tom


    <element name="ContactPerson" type="md:ContactType"/>
    <complexType name="ContactType">
        <sequence>
            <element ref="md:Extensions" minOccurs="0"/>
            <element ref="md:Company" minOccurs="0"/>
            <element ref="md:GivenName" minOccurs="0"/>
            <element ref="md:SurName" minOccurs="0"/>
            <element ref="md:EmailAddress" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
            <element ref="md:TelephoneNumber" minOccurs="0"
maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
        </sequence>
        <attribute name="contactType" type="md:ContactTypeType" use="required"/>
        <anyAttribute namespace="##other" processContents="lax"/>
    </complexType>
    <element name="Company" type="string"/>
    <element name="GivenName" type="string"/>
    <element name="SurName" type="string"/>
    <element name="EmailAddress" type="anyURI"/>
    <element name="TelephoneNumber" type="string"/>
    <simpleType name="ContactTypeType">
        <restriction base="string">
            <enumeration value="technical"/>
            <enumeration value="support"/>
            <enumeration value="administrative"/>
            <enumeration value="billing"/>
            <enumeration value="other"/>
        </restriction>
    </simpleType>