Re: RDFS versioning

Bill dehOra <BdehOra@interx.com> wrote:

> Well that's fine and consistent with the change schema == change URI.

Which is what I disagree with.

> Looked at in a certain way, this is a very, very good thing.

Why? If for some reason the schema is incorrect, or needs to be added to,
the author should be free to change it. This is not a theoretical issue. In
real, practical terms this has come up.

For example, the original RSS schema was incorrect and made some statements
that were wrong. We have since updated it, but we cannot update the URI
since a large portion of RSS users are XML parsers and they would all break
if we used a different URI.

Another example is the Dublin Core group, we've decided to move away from
versioned URIs because they cause implementers too many problems when they
change. We've already invalidated a large amount of software by moving from
1.0 to 1.1 and it's not an experience we want to repeat.

> If A moves to schema aa and expects to be able to converse with B using schema
> a, that's not the fault of the publishers: for all intents and purposes A is
> trying to communicate with B across two different schemas.

But why should it be two different schemas? The differences between them are
so small as not to cause problems -- all the spec is doing is _creating_
incompatibilities between various systems!

-- 
Aaron Swartz <me@aaronsw.com>| ...schoolyard subversion...
  <http://www.aaronsw.com>   |  because school harms kids
AIM: JediOfPi | ICQ: 33158237|  http://aaronsw.com/school/

Received on Thursday, 22 February 2001 10:57:43 UTC