[jats-list] name-alternatives and CJK author names

["Alexander Schwarzman aschwarzman@xxxxxxxxx" <jats-list-service@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

My organization is going to allow Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK)
authors to have an option to display their names in their native languages,
in addition to displaying them in English. JATS, of course, has the
<name-alternatives> element for that. However, with so much  composition
software and processes that have been working without <name-alternatives>,
it is a bit disruptive to introduce an additional element in the
contrib/name hierarchy.

Assuming that  each <contrib> element contains information about only one
contributor, what would be the harm of omitting the <name-alternatives>
element altogether?

E.g.,
<contrib-group>
<contrib>
<name>
<surname>Cheng</surname>
<given-names>Yongxin</given-names>
</name>
<string-name name-style="eastern"
xml:lang="zh">&#x7A0B;&#x6C38;&#x946B;</string-name>
</contrib>
<contrib>
<name>
<surname>Yang</surname>
<given-names>Xingqi</given-names>
</name>
<string-name name-style="eastern"
xml:lang="zh">&#x6768;&#x5174;&#x542F;</string-name>
</contrib>
</contrib-group>

In other words, what would be the negative consequences of not using
<name-alternatives>?

Thank you,
Alexander ('Sasha') Schwarzman
Content Technology Architect
Optica Publishing Group (formerly OSA)
aschwarzman@xxxxxxxxxx