Re: What's the problem? "Reuse of 1998 XHTML namespace is potentially misleading/wrong"

Larry Masinter wrote:
> I accepted ACTION-79 on ISSUE 60, "Reuse of 1998 XHTML namespace is 
> potentially misleading/wrong", which was to send an email sparking a 
> discussion of this issue.

The namespace is from 1999, not 1998.

http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml

> I'm searching around for some email or writeup which would explain 
> why this was raised as an issue, but I haven't really found any with 
> a justification for why something that is "potentially" a problem 
> might actually *be* a problem, and raised as an issue without further 
> substantiation.

IIRC, I believe the issue is that the XHTML2 WG think they have change 
control over that namespace URI and that we shouldn't be using it. 
Additionally, the latest XHTML 2 editor's draft is now using the 
namespace [1].

This issue has been discussed in depth around mid 2007 [2].  The problem 
is that XHTML5 and XHTML2 are completely incompatible with each other 
and they cannot possibly use the same namespace as each other.

But XHTML2 also has several major incompatibilities with XHTML1, which 
would effectively make it impossible to implement both XHTML 1.x and 2 
in the same implementation, if they share the same namespace [3].  XHTML 
5, on the other hand, has not only been designed with compatibility in 
mind, success is dependent upon continuing to use the same namespace.

Basically, the only solution to this issue that should be considered is 
that we continue using the namespace and the XHTML2 WG use a different 
namespace.

> Otherwise, I will propose closing the issue.

Absolutely, keeping this issue open is unnecessary.  The issue is 
entirely political, with no technical justification for us to keep it 
open.  It should be closed immediately.  At most, a separate issue 
should be raised with the XHTML2 WG to make them use an alternative 
namespace.

[1] http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2009/ED-xhtml2-20090205/conformance.html#strict
[2] 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Jul/thread.html#msg759
[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Jun/0700.html
(This has a list of issues with XHTML2, including several that cause 
incompatibilities with the namespace.)

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Wednesday, 11 February 2009 19:36:59 UTC