Require XML version?

Is it really useful to make the XML version declaration optional? Our
experience with the Web says that it will be hardly ever used if it is.
XML processors will not be able to depend on it just as HTML processors
cannot. What is the rationale for having it be optional? Even valid XML
documents need not declare their XML versions.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Monday, 19 May 1997 20:12:18 UTC