status of RDF, RDFS, and OWL ``namespace files''

Hi:

What is the status of 
	http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
	http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema
Are they normative parts of the RDF specifications?  I don't see how, because

1/ Neither of them are valid in the RDF Model Theory or the RDFS model theory.

2/ http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
   does not have elements that correspond to all the elements of the RDF
   namespace. 

If they are not normative, what is their status?


One reason that I ask is that WebOnt has a similar sort of document
	http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl
with some of the same problems, but because of owl:imports the actual
contents of the document matters more.

In fact, owl:imports makes the contents of
	http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns
	http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema
matter more.


Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research
Lucent Technologies