RDFa RFE: No Mandated DOCTYPE

"4) There MUST be a DOCTYPE declaration in the document prior to the
root element."
- http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-rdfa-syntax-20071018/#docconf

What's the rationale for mandating a DOCTYPE? I'd rather it didn't
have to appear; and I'd rather, as someone who is having to implement
an increasing amount of RDF serialisations, there were an easier way
of being able to tell whether a document is RDFa or not.

I'd like to propose some kind of attribute on the root element (you
already have to peek as far as //h:head for GRDDL and eRDF, so an
attribute there might be fine too; you could even leverage @profile),
but as long as it's easy to parse I don't particularly mind. This
could also be used as a hook for validation, note.

I will protest strongly at Last Call/CR if there is no easy way to
tell whether a document is RDFa or not. This is a top-priority RFE,
for me qua an implementor of this specification.

-- 
Sean B. Palmer, http://inamidst.com/sbp/

Received on Thursday, 22 November 2007 09:42:47 UTC