Re: How are correct, unambiguous results possible with implementation-defined XML pre-processing?

A minor correction to Murray's point:

[[
 > Following a careful reading of our charter, I am comfortable claiming
 > that we have succeeded,
 > as are all of the other members of the WG. Your objections have been
 > noted, reviewed and
 > discussed. No changes to the spec are forthcoming as a result of our
 > review.
]]

This suggests that the WG is further along than we got to at the last 
meeting, which I chaired.

It is true that "Your objections have been noted, reviewed and 
discussed. No changes to the spec are forthcoming as a result of our 
review.", but the WG failed to come to a formal closure, to allow us to 
formally address the comments.

As I have made clear, in HP internal discussions, this is, I believe, a 
fair summary of the WG position, and, at this stage, I don't believe the 
WG is minded to do anything other than reject, at least the spirit of, 
your comment; but until the WG has given a formal response, this should 
not be taken as anything more than my impression. Since I feel a 
procedural obligation to abstain, I feel it would be helpful, if some 
other member of the WG would draft and propose a formal response to you, 
saying these words.

Murray, it would, in my opinion, be helpful, if you took a lead on 
proposing a formal response to David, perhaps along the lines of the 
above quoted paragraph.

Jeremy






Murray Maloney wrote:
> 
> At 01:23 PM 6/1/2007 -0400, Booth, David (HP Software - Boston) wrote:
>> Chimezie,
>>
>> Your analysis is excellent, but it makes a key assumption that is simply
>> incorrect, and seems to be the same key incorrect assumption that Murray
>> has made, as evidenced by the minutes from this week's GRDDL
>> teleconference:
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-grddl-wg/2007May/att-0104/200
>> 7-05-30-grddl-wg-minutes.html
>> [[
>> Murray: you cannot impose on someone to ingnore an XInclude in a
>> document. Noone has the authority to do it
>> ]]
>>
>> They key question is: Are the semantics of an XML document governed by
>> the root element namespace or are they not?  There is no gray area to
>> this question.  They either are or they are not.  I essentially asked a
>> more subtle version of this question in issue-dbooth-10, and DanC
>> reported that the WG had already asked the TAG this question and the
>> answer was yes:
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-grddl-wg/2007May/0071.html
>> To be clear:
>>
>>     Rule #1: The semantics of an XML document are governed
>>     by the root element namespace of that document.
>>
>> The point is that if rule #1 is true, then the GRDDL spec does not have
>> the authority to permit an XML document's semantics to be *altered* by
>> performing XML parsing that would be incorrect for that particular XML
>> document.
> 
> You seem to be twisting our words to suit your argument.
> 
> The GRDDL spec neither permits nor forbids anything to do with 'semantics'.
> The GRDDL spec operates on representations of information resources.
> Purely mechanical. No knowledge of document semantics involved or implied.
> 
> A user-agent or user environment is subject to its own authority, not ours.
> 
>> Similarly, regarding Murray's statement above, if rule #1 holds, then
>> the XML document's the root element namespace owner absolutely *does*
>> have the authority to define the meaning of the syntax
>> [[
>>     <xi:include href="http://example.org/do-not-expand" />
>> ]]
>> within the context of that document.
> 
> While such authority may exist in the mind of the TAG as it examines 
> your document,
> you have no practical authority to assert processing semantics over a 
> document
> that I have in my hand. So, if I choose to observe your processing 
> semantics, you win.
> However, if I, or anybody between you and I decides to change that 
> document in
> some way, then you may not get the same result as you would otherwise, 
> and you
> may never know the difference.
> 
> We concluded that the recipient of an XML document containing a new 
> transformation,
> or a transformation from a new namespace or profile, might want to examine
> the transformation and decide what to allow the transformation to do or 
> not do
> according to local data security and integrity policies. The recipient 
> might even want
> to run the transformation in a walled-off sandbox to avoid inadvertent 
> contamination.
> A sophisticated GRDDL-aware agent or transformation might run the 
> transformation
> under different processing models and operating systems to yield 
> different results
> and then compare those results to decide which suited its taste. so to 
> speak.
> 
>> Please note that there is a difference between an XML document and an
>> XML Infoset.  Your line of reasoning seems to be subtly altering rule #1
>> to: "The semantics of an XML Infoset are governed by the root element
>> namespace of that Infoset".  But GRDDL was not chartered for producing
>> RDF from an XML Infoset (though it is fine to do so as one *step* in
>> producing RDF from an XML document).  GRDDL was charterd for producing
>> RDF from an XML *document*.   The XML specification defines what
>> constitutes an "XML document":
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#dt-xml-doc
>> and it is defined in terms of characters -- not infoset.  (And
>> incidentally, it corresponds to the WebArch notion of "representation"
>> -- *not* "information resource".)
> 
> You keep coming back to the distinction between an XML Document and
> an XML Infoset as though there was some significance. The only mention
> of 'infoset' in GRDDL is in the informative section that warns about the
> potential for missing information in an XML Document representation
> of an information resource.
> 
> GRDDL operates on representations of information resources.
> 
> As to the group's charter, I believe that you should read it again:
> 
> "The mission of this Working Group is to complement the concrete RDF/XML 
> syntax with a mechanism to relate other XML syntaxes (especially XHTML 
> dialects or "microformats") to the RDF abstract syntax via 
> transformations identified by URIs."
> 
> Under "Scope and Deliverables" it reads:
> 
> "[GRDDL] binds XML documents [...] to transformations [...] that relate 
> their syntax to RDF/XML."
> 
> Following a careful reading of our charter, I am comfortable claiming 
> that we have succeeded,
> as are all of the other members of the WG. Your objections have been 
> noted, reviewed and
> discussed. No changes to the spec are forthcoming as a result of our 
> review.
> 
> David, it is evident that you were hoping that someone would develop a 
> spec that is
> quite similar to GRDDL but distinctly different. I suggest that GRDDL 
> could serve
> as a model for another specification that works according to a different 
> set of rules.
> I encourage you to form a working group for that purpose.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Murray
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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Received on Monday, 4 June 2007 11:43:10 UTC