[Bug 7670] Use of prefixes is too complicated for a Web technology

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=7670





--- Comment #43 from Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>  2010-03-24 04:52:43 ---
RDFa-in-HTML (aka HTML+RDFa) is built on top of the RDFa in XHTML: Syntax and
Processing specification. The RDFa WG will be publishing a RDFa Core 1.1
specification during April 2010 that will become the basis for all future
RDFa-based specifications. So that is how this bug is tied with work that the
RDFa WG is doing, and that is why the list of issues listed in the Editor's
response are of interest to this bug.

Here's a proposed timeline for the interplay between RDFa Core 1.1 and
HTML+RDFa.

* RDFa Core 1.1 FPWD (April 2010)
* HTML+RDFa switches it's base document from XHTML+RDFa to RDFa Core 1.1
* RDFa Core 1.1 absorbs some content from HTML+RDFa
* HTML+RDFa Heartbeat draft based on RDFa Core 1.1 in (May 2010)
* RDFa Core 1.1 LC (October 2010)
* HTML+RDFa LC (no sooner than October 2010)

We're going for a spec hierarchy that looks like this:

                  +--------- HTML+RDFa
                  |
RDFa Core 1.1 ----+--------- SVG+RDFa
                  |
                  +--------- ODF+RDFa

So, any changes made to RDFa Core 1.1 will be applied to HTML+RDFa. One of
those changes is a prefix-less approach to authoring RDFa. I don't know if that
alleviates your concern.

Assuming that it doesn't, the next question would be to ask "What would
alleviate your concern with prefixes?", to which you've replied in the past
"Don't use them at all."

If that is still your response, then I'm afraid to say that the RDFa WG will
most certainly not be removing support for xmlns: or the general prefixing
mechanism. This is doubly so because it has been shown that parsing can be
performed in a namespace-aware and non-namespace-aware context. The latest
HTML+RDFa draft expresses how to map xmlns: values based on whether or not one
is processing in XML-mode or non-XML-mode.

This is for several reasons:

* It's not realistic to remove support for xmlns: in HTML5.
* If the xmlns: attribute continues to exist, it should be expected that web
technologies and authors will continue to use it.
* There is an installed base for RDFa now, removing the xmlns: feature (which 
is universally used) from the language is a non-starter for the RDF and RDFa
communities.

So, with that said, exactly what changes to the specification would you like to
see? Please be very clear in your reply - quote sections of the spec, provide
exact spec text changes if necessary.


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Received on Wednesday, 24 March 2010 04:52:46 UTC