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OpenGovLD / specs

Linked Data vocabulary and API for parliamentary and committee information systems
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Semantics of MAY and OPTIONAL #81

Open akuckartz opened 9 years ago

akuckartz commented 9 years ago

The semantics of "OPTIONAL" properties is not completely obvious. In some sense all properties which are not explicitely mentioned are optional.

Maybe those "OPTIONAL" properties MUST or SHOULD be used by clients? Or the properties MUST be provided by servers when the information is delivered to clents?

akuckartz commented 9 years ago

Popolo states this about conforming implementations:

It must not use terms from outside this specification's terms where this specification's terms would suffice. It may use terms from outside this specification's terms where this specification's terms are insufficient.

This can be adopted. One question remains: What if both a term within the specification and one from outside are used for the same or overlapping purpose? Should that be allowed?

jpmckinney commented 9 years ago

Those two criteria mean that it is not allowed to use both.