Context and... Re: the case of two bats

Dan Connolly wrote (once upon a time)

    I'd like to discuss this issue in more black-and-white terms;
    here's an example that has clarified the situation for at
    least a few folks:

    Consider two documents, one
    at http://example.com/catalog/cat.xml :

            <inventory xmlns="../2000/vocab#">
                    <bat qty="100"/>
                    <ball qty="200"/>
            </datasheet>

    and another at http://example.net/biology/animals.xml :

            <rodents xmlns="../2000/vocab#">
                    <bat/>
                    <rat/>
            </services>

    Are the <bat/> elements in both documents associated with the same
    point in URI/web space? 
----------------------------
The problem is that this logic is not unique to *baseURIs* only (in determining context). For example:

<root>
    <catalog xmlns="http://example.com/catalog">
     <inventory xmlns="../2000/vocab#">
        <bat qty="100" />
        <ball qty="200" />
     </inventory>
    </catalog>
    <animals xmlns="http://example.net/biology">
     <rodents xmlns="../2000/vocab#">
        <bat />
        <rat />
     </rodents>
    </animals>
</root>
        
Now do you expect both "../2000/vocab#" relative URIs to be *absolutized* wrt the base URI and compared? This is equally ridiculous.

The "context" needs to include the namespace of the parent element in order for relative URIs to make sense.

Jonathan Borden