Why does the default namespace not apply to attributes?

All,

 

The
following question is about the rationale for the difference in approach
between elements and attributes with regard to namespaces.

 

In order to
promote reuse of XML artifacts within our organization, a set of
recommendations has been specified for XML Schema documents design. One of the
recommendations is that every XML Schema document should have a target
namespace. However, after some experiments and investigation we learnt that
this namespace does not apply to attributes, which means that the use of a
target namespace results in attributes and elements being in different conceptual
spaces, which seems counter-intuitive. 

 

We have
been wondering what could be the rationale behind this, but couldn’t find the
answer. Hopefully, you can provide it or you know where to search for it.

 

Moreover,
if you can provide us any directions on the best approach  (i.e. set attributeFormDefault to “qualified”,
use global attribute declarations, or else) with respect to reusability, this
would be more than welcome.

 

Thanks in
advance,

Nanda
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