Fwd: [Bug 3679] Schema component for namespace

Kohsuke,

(I'm CC'ing your colleague Leonid Arbouzov on this email as a way of
asking him to make sure you see this note.)

Last August, in connection with your work on JAXB, you sent email
to the XML Schema Working Group on the Schema Component
Designators (SCDs) document.  Your email is at
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-xml-schema-wg/2006Aug/0016.html

One point you raised was actually more about XML Schema itself,
and was recorded as issue 3679 in Bugzilla
(http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=3679).  You wrote:

- This is probably more of a comment to the core schema spec, but
    for a similar reason, in my problem domain it's very convenient to
    be able to talk about a particular namespace. But the schema spec
    lacks a component that corresponds to such concept right now.

    For example, a JAXB user would often like to say "please generate
    classes into the org.acme.foo package from this namespace".

    Since a namespace is often used to group a set of components, I
    suspect this is not unique to my problem domain. For example, when
    you write some <xs:documentation>s for, say, the DocBook namespace,
    your intention is probably for that documentation to apply just to
    the DocBook namespace, as opposed to the schema-as-a-whole
    component, as implied by the current spec.

During today's call, the Working Group decided against taking action
on this issue, and to close it with the disposition WONTFIX.  That
means that we do not expect any change in the 1.1 spec to address the
concern raised here.  (In view of the tight time frame, this decision
may be reopened and revisited on next week's call.)

The Working Group did not officially record a rationale for this
decision; speaking for myself, I would offer the reasoning that (a)
it's not quite clear what is being suggested, and in particular how
what is being suggested differs from the 'namespace schema information
information items' which are the content of the 'schema information'
property on the validation root, both in XML Schema 1.0
(http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/#d0e17275) and in our current 1.1
draft (http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema11-1/#d0e25780), and (b) judging
from the information available, the cost/benefit ratio of the change
falls on the wrong side of the place where the Working Group has drawn
the line for 1.1.  The Working Group has been willing to change the
component structure only when absolutely necessary, so the effective
cost of the proposal is high.  And the benefit is not as clear as it
would need to be to justify that cost.

Accordingly, I've marked issue 3679 as resolved.  (Recorded
in http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-xml-schema-comments/ 
2007JanMar/0065.html

As the originator of this issue, you can signal your agreement with
(or at least: acquiescence in) this decision by going into Bugzilla
and marking the issue CLOSED, or you can indicate your dissatisfaction
with the decision by changing the status to REOPENED.  If that doesn't
work, please reply to this email (including the comments list, or the
XML Schema IG, on the addressee or CC list). If we don't hear from
you in a couple of weeks, we'll assume you acquiesce and the issue
will be marked CLOSED.


Thank you.

Michael Sperberg-McQueen

Received on Friday, 23 February 2007 19:32:52 UTC