RE: Significant W3C Confusion over Namespace Meaning and Policy

Hi Roy,

Apologies in advance for not responding to all of your statements.
You've drawn some conclusions about my statements that are not
enirely correct, but in the interest of brevity I'll stick to 
the biggest issues.

> so I hope you forgive me for rejecting *identified* as having 
> the meaning you suggest.  

Fair enough.  The only problem I have with it is that this is
what the word means in the dictionaries to which I have access 
as well as in computer science texts.

So, given the field we're in, 'identified' is the wrong word to use
to achieve your interpretation.  I think your interpretation 
would correspond more to 

a collection of names "[currently] associated with" a URI

> In my opinion, you should put aside the process issues and state
> clearly what the technical benefits/drawbacks are of allowing a
> new name to be added to an existing namespace.  

OK.  For one, if XML markup that was signed can be processed 
differently after the signature was affixed relative to when 
the signature was affixed, then XML signatures becomes insecure.

> Merely claiming "it is defined that way in Namespaces" doesn't 
> really argue for anything more than changing the Namespaces 
> recommendation to better suit the architecture.

Merely claiming that it is defined a particular way in namespaces
doesn't merely argue for a namespace erratum.  It argues that
either a namespaces erratum be issued (and fixes to any specs
that may have counted on the meaning being corrected) OR for
correcting the use of namespaces within the W3C going forward.

The job of the TAG is to think about all the Recs they have
and choose.

This thread started out because a large number in the W3C 
community did not even believe that a change was required,
other than an erratum from some obscure little spec.  Even
the suggestion that a fix could occur by an erratum to 
Namespaces is significant progress.  Still, it'd break things.

Cheers,
John

Received on Thursday, 10 February 2005 00:55:23 UTC