Re: RDFa and its relationship to XHTML

Karl,

I really appreciate your detailed answer. I was, in fact, under the  
impression that the namespace issue was a problem with the validator,  
so your answer helps set me straight. I will indeed take this up with  
the HTML WG, because I heard from industry folks at WWW2006 that they  
were surprised to see they couldn't add their namespace to an XHTML  
document.

Again, thanks for the details. As we begin to integrate RDFa into the  
XHTML standard, I'm hoping we can work closely with the validation team.

-Ben

On Jun 8, 2006, at 7:56 PM, Karl Dubost wrote:

>
> Hi Ben,
>
> Le 06-06-08 à 23:42, Ben Adida a écrit :
>> Glad to have you chime in on this, we really want to work more  
>> closely with the validation team. One thing that's been surprising  
>> - it was even mentioned to me by a few industry folks at WWW2006 -  
>> why does the validator reject namespace declarations in XHTML?
>
> I think there is often a misunderstanding about what is a validator.
> 	The validator doesn't reject anything,
> 	the validator implements the requirements of the specification:  
> DTD or Schema.
>
> The validator is also not a conformance checker, it's a markup  
> validator, read here:
> 	- Read a document
> 	- Find its associated schema or DTD
> 	- Validate the document against its grammar.
>
> Specifications sometimes declare things which are not possible to  
> put in a schema or DTD.
> 	Example: you MUST have a meta name in HTML 4.01 to give the  
> associated stylesheet language when only style attributes are used.
>
> The markup validator doesn't implement some of the conformance  
> requirements of specifications, sometimes because the  
> specifications are too fuzzy, also because the resources are  
> limited, but EVERYONE is welcome to PARTICIPATE to the code.
> 	Participate: -> http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/qa-dev/
>
>
> Answering your precise question.
>> why does the validator reject namespace declarations in XHTML?
>
> * Which version of XHTML: XHTML 1.0 or XHTML 1.1?
> 	Not the same specification, not the same requirements.
>
> As for the XHTML 1.0 specification.
>
>    XHTML 1.0 *strictly* conforming document:
> 	*Valid* document according to the DTD.
>
> 	[[[
> 	It must conform to the constraints expressed in one of
> 	the three DTDs found in DTDs and in Appendix B.
> 	]]]
> 	-- XHTML 1.0: The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second  
> Edition)
> 	http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#strict
> 	Thu, 01 Aug 2002 13:56:02 GMT
> 	
>    XHTML 1.0 with other namespaces:
> 	*Well-formed* document
> 	http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#well-formed
>
> 	[[[
> 	The XHTML namespace may be used with other XML
> 	namespaces as per [XMLNS], although such documents
> 	are not strictly conforming XHTML 1.0 documents as
> 	defined above. Work by W3C is addressing ways to
> 	specify conformance for documents involving multiple
> 	namespaces. For an example, see [XHTML+MathML].
> 	]]]
>
> 	-- XHTML 1.0: The Extensible HyperText Markup Language (Second  
> Edition)
> 	http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/#strict
> 	Thu, 01 Aug 2002 13:56:02 GMT
>
>
> So as I said,
> 	- namespaces are not valid BY design BY the specification.
> 	  if you want to change it, ask HTML WG
> 	- participation is more than welcome to improve the conformance
>           checking part of the validator (following the specification.
> 	- validator doesn't make the specification, but follow the  
> specification.
>
>
> Best.
>
> -- 
> Karl Dubost - http://www.w3.org/People/karl/
> W3C Conformance Manager, QA Activity Lead
>   QA Weblog - http://www.w3.org/QA/
>      *** Be Strict To Be Cool ***
>
>
>
>
>

Received on Friday, 9 June 2006 12:27:29 UTC