There are 16 standard OMF elements. The authoritative definition of the OMF is on the OMF element web page. It is reproduced here (as of Feb 14, 2002) for your convenience.
The 16 standard OMF elements, along with their obligation, repeatability, and standard attributes are summarized below:
| NUMBER | LABEL | OBLIGATION | REPEATABILITY | ATTRIBUTES |
| 1. | creator | mandatory | repeatable | (none) |
| 2. | maintainer | optional | repeatable | (none) |
| 3. | contributor | optional | repeatable | (none) |
| 4. | title | mandatory | repeatable | (none) |
| 5. | date | mandatory | not repeatable | (none) |
| 6. | version | optional | repeatable | id, date, description |
| 7. | subject | optional | repeatable | (none) |
| 8. | description | optional | repeatable | (none) |
| 9. | type | optional | repeatable | (none) |
| 10. | format | optional | repeatable | dtd, mime |
| 11. | identifier | optional | repeatable | (none) |
| 12. | source | optional | repeatable | (none) |
| 13. | language | optional | repeatable | (none) |
| 14. | relation | optional | repeatable | (none) |
| 15. | coverage | optional | repeatable | geographic, distribution, kernel, architecture, os |
| 16. | rights | optional | repeatable | type, license, license.version, holder |
The elements are defined as follows:
| NUMBER | LABEL | DEFINITION |
| 1. | creator | The person or organization primarily responsible for creating the intellectual content of the resource. CREATOR should appear in RFC822 format (http://info.internet.isi.edu:80/in-notes/rfc/files/rfc822.txt). Preferred format: mailname@site.domain.top (Full Name) |
| 2. | maintainer | The person or organization responsible for publishing the resource in its current form. If left blank, this value defaults to CREATOR. (RFC822 format) |
| 3. | contributor | A person or organization not specified in a CREATOR or MAINTAINER element who has made significant intellectual contributions to the resource but whose contribution is secondary to any person or organization specified in a CREATOR or MAINTAINER element. (RFC822 format) |
| 4. | title | The name given to the resource by the CREATOR or MAINTAINER. |
| 5. | date | The date on which the resource was made available in its current form. (Recommended best practice is an 8 digit number in the form YYYY-MM-DD as defined in http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime, a profile of ISO 8601. In this scheme, the date element 1994-11-05 corresponds to November 5, 1994.) |
| 6. | version | VERSION is a multifaceted element, consisting of three attributes. VERSION.id consists of a string or number that distinguishes the current revision of the resource from other revisions. VERSION.date records the date the resource was made available in the form specified by VERSION.id. (Recommended best practice is an 8 digit number in the form YYYY-MM-DD as defined in http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime, a profile of ISO 8601. In this scheme, the date element 1994-11-05 corresponds to to November 5, 1994.) VERSION.description summarizes revisions that distinguish VERSION.id from other versions of the resource. Repeated instances of VERSION comprise the revision history of a resource. |
| 7. | subject | The topic of the resource. Typically, this element employs keywords that summarize the subject or content of the resource. |
| 8. | description | A textual description of the content of the resource (e.g., an abstract, contents note). |
| 9. | type | The category of the resource. To promote consistency, TYPE should be selected from the following list: HOWTO, mini-HOWTO, user's guide, administrator's guide, programmer's guide, installation guide. |
| 10. | format | Details about the implementation of the resource. FORMAT accomodates two attributes: FORMAT.DTD and FORMAT.MIME. FORMAT.DTD describes the document type definition used in the resource (if any). FORMAT.MIME should be expressed as a MIME type, as defined in RFC 2046 (http://info.internet.isi.edu:80/in-notes/rfc/files/rfc2046.txt). e.g.: type/subtype. |
| 11. | identifier | A specification of a unique ID by which the resource may be identified and from which the resource may be retrieved. Entries for this field should contain a valid URL which returns the resource in question. For example: http://www.ldp.org/docs/howto/nfs |
| 12. | source | A specification of any previous or alternative publication of the resource in its current form (e.g. a larger work from which the resource is extracted, such as a chapter taken from a book). SOURCE may include a URL, ISBN or similar device. |
| 13. | language | Language(s) of the intellectual content of the resource. Where practical, the content of this field should coincide with RFC 1766. See: http://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1766.txt |
| 14. | relation | A URL that points to the IDENTIFIER element of another resource. Each instance of RELATION links the resource to other resources of similar domain or style. |
| 15. | coverage | A multifaceted description of the resource's intellectual scope that consists of five attributes. COVERAGE.geographic identifies regional specificity of the resource. Where practical COVERAGE.geographic should be expressed as an ISO 3166-compliant string of two characters (See http://www.w3.org/International/O-misc-iso3166.html). COVERAGE.distribution identifies a Linux distribution explicitly specified in the resource. COVERAGE.kernel identifies the kernel version treated in the resource. COVERAGE.architecture identifies hardware described in the resource. COVERAGE.os identifies an operating system explicitly specified in the resource. |
| 16. | rights | An indication of the copying policy under which the resource is distributed. Four attributes comprise the RIGHTS element. RIGHTS.type identifies the name of the resource's distribution license. To promote consistency, RIGHTS.type should be selected from the following list: GNU GPL, GNU LGPL, BSD, X Consortium, Artistic, MPL, QPL, IBMPL, ASPL, libpng, zlib, IJG JPEG, OPL, ORL. RIGHTS.license identifies the URL for the license referenced in RIGHTS.type. RIGHTS.license.version identifies the version number of the resource's license. RIGHTS.holder identifies the person or organization who holds the rights for the resource described in RIGHTS.license. |
Please note that these are the standard OMF elements. ScrollKeeper makes a couple small extensions to the OMF, as described in the next section.