------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 14:53:38 -0400 From: "Childress,Eric" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'm pleased to report that the DCMI Date Working Group has completed work on a matter referred to it by the DCMI Usage Board. After deliberation it is the sense of the Date WG that ISO 8601 Data elements and interchange formats -- Information interchange -- Representation of dates and times should not be registered for: * dc:date * dcterms:temporal The WG bases its decision chiefly on the following findings: * Scope: Though ISO 8601 provides for useful and in-scope cases of date information, the standard also provides for cases (e.g., duration) which are out of scope for dc:date and dcterms:temporal. * Practical application: The large universe of values permitted -- and the authorization of multiple expressions of these values -- by ISO 8601 potentially poses impractical application and validation-by-software burdens on agencies wishing to make use of dc:date and dcterms:temporal. The Date WG believes that future registration of profiles of ISO 8601 and/or other, less complex encoding schemes will better serve the Dublin Core community rather than registration of an "all-ISO 8601" encoding scheme.