Julia Flanders wrote:
> Option B, though, does seem to be the kind of thing we often encourage 
> people to do when we talk about customization. Isn't the beauty of ODD 
> that if the TEI's choice in the matter doesn't meet your needs (e.g. 
> choosing an overly fussy datatype for something as routine as 
> measuring time), you can make the necessary adjustment in your TEI 
> extension?
Sort of. I am all in favour of limiting an existing datatype; so if Lou 
wanted to limit the BNC
to durations of less than 3 minutes but more than 10 seconds, say, that 
would be great.
But changing the basic meaning of the datatype from a time 
representation in a standard
format to a simple number with assumed semantics seems bad to me. I 
can't merge Lou's
material with mine for an analysis, for example.

OTOH, if Lou adopted position c) (@approxDur), he could map that to 
strict @dur
using the <equiv> element, which would make it easier for to use his stuff.

>
> I don't see this as a sacrifice of conformance at all. I agree, option 
> A might be the easiest thing in this particular case, but I'm curious 
> about the general point here.
>
> Are you saying you'd define "conformance" as meaning "using a strict 
> subset"? That's rather harsh, I think.
In the TEI Council at present there is a discussion of conformance in 
which I attempted to define
different conformance types (I called them levels, but that has 
connotations....). I won't rehearse
the arguments here, just to note that in my mind "conformance" means 
stating your position on
a spectrum of possibilities. I don't want to limit the meaning of 
"conformance" to just "strict subset".

Lou remarked to me privately that the BNC does not use the TEI namespace 
for its elements,
which already puts it some way beyond the pale in my mind. But my pale 
surrounds an area
close to the house, others may encompas greater areas of woodland and water.

This is a fun topic :-}

-- 
Sebastian Rahtz      

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