separator default for urlencoded-post versus application/x-www-form-urlencoded

The section for form-urlencoded submission [1] indicates that it uses the 
separator character specified by the submission element.

[1] 
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/specs/XForms1.1/index-diff.html#serialize-urlencode

The default for the separator attribute specified at the beginning of 
Section 11 [2] is semicolon rather than ampersand.

[2] 
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Forms/specs/XForms1.1/index-diff.html#submit-submission-element

Why is this?

Either the default should be ampersand, or possibly it was meant to be 
used only on a urlencoded-post? 

Or possibly the default was meant to be semi-colon for urlencoded-post and 
ampersand otherwise?  For method="get" is there ever a reason to have a 
separator other than ampersand?

This default setting appears ever since the attribute was added way back 
in 2002 [3], but the attribute appeared in the same working draft as did 
the urlencoded-post.

[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-xforms-20020821/

John M. Boyer, Ph.D.
STSM, Interactive Documents and Web 2.0 Applications
Chair, W3C Forms Working Group
Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software
IBM Victoria Software Lab
E-Mail: boyerj@ca.ibm.com 

Blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/JohnBoyer
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