Re: the case of two bats

Dan Connolly wrote:

> But then the WG decided to include #fragids and changed the spec
> to say "URI reference", little realizing that this also
> allowed relative URI references.

It was actually brought up several times. See the threads starting at:

 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-names-issues/1998JulSep/0040.html

and

 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-names-issues/1998JulSep/0066.html

I don't know why the editors chose not to do anything about it.  The XML
WG never made a decision to allow relative URIs.

> Little did I realize
> that the text said that a relative URI reference was
> to be used as a namespace name without expanding
> it to absolute form.

Me neither.  I am guilty of some wishful thinking.  To me it was obvious
that what you would compare character-for-character would be the URIs
after absolutization, and I had thought that it was possible to
interpret the XML Namespaces Rec consistently with that.  That's why the
XPath Rec says what it does.

> Indeed, an unfortunate turn of events, but here we are.

Very unfortunate.

If a significant constituency thinks it's obvious relative namespace
URIs should be handled one way, and another significant constituency
thinks it's obvious they should be handled in another incompatible way,
the only reasonable solution I can see at this point is to phase
out/disallow/deprecate them.  If at some later point everybody can agree
how they should be handled, then they can be allowed again.

James

Received on Friday, 19 May 2000 07:00:41 UTC