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In section 4, phases of serialization, we don't specifically say where in the sequence of events (a) indentation, and (b) addition of meta tags occur. This means it's not well-defined whether character maps apply to text nodes and attribute nodes created by these two processes. My preference is that character maps should not apply to these nodes (the other operations in phase 2, character expansion, are unlikely to affect them anyway). This seems to suggest that indentation and addition of meta tags happen between phases 2 and 3 in the sequence.
The XSLT GW discussed and feels the meta tag should be regarded as 'item 0' in the serialization, not late, because you want them to be treated the same as any elements and attributes. Create those nodes, then go through steps 1-3. The XSLT WG recommends to the joint group that insertion of meta elements etc. goes before current step 1, and indentation between steps 2 and 3.
The Joint WG accepted the suggestion in comment #1 in the F2F meeting held on Aug. 25, 2006. Thank-you for raising this comment. Joanne Tong
Closing bug because commenter has not objected to the resolution posted and more than two weeks have passed.