itemizedlist/variablelist: spacing attribute

What is the reason that there is no "spacing" attribute for "variablelist"
in contrary to "itemizedlist"?

This makes it difficult to find a consistent customization of the 
stylesheets. E.g. for "itemizedlist" I would use 'spacing="compact"'
but for "variablelist" I would have to use something like 'role="compact"'.

Michael
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