Re: the return of the Public Identifier Question

> From: Michael Sperberg-McQueen <U35395@UICVM.UIC.EDU>

> >| 3 There appear to be three approaches to resolution that command
> >| or could command non-negligible support:
> >|
> >|   a SGML Open Catalogs, as specified in the current version of the
> >|     relevant SGML Open technical resolution
> >
> >If a catalogue can give as the rhs another public identifier, this
> >choice does not really result in specifying a resolution mechanism;
> >and if that's okay, then punting to mechanisms entirely outside
> >XML should be okay, too.  Catalogues are not resolution mechanisms,
> >they are indirection mechanisms, and that's just right.
> 
> I'll have to reread the SGML Open spec in its current incarnation,
> but the last time I looked I thought the rhs of a PUBLIC entry
> had to be a system identifier.

The rhs has to date always been a storage object identifier.  The
latest draft (TR9401:1997), which is still in subcommittee, changes
the rhs to be a Formal System Identifier.  In no case is it a public
identifier.  (Technically, it's not a system identifier either, but
it is true that your average system identifier is a storage object
identifier, so while Michael's wording is slightly imprecise, it
is not particularly misleading.) 

paul