PROPOSAL to close ISSUE-11: default prefix declarations

If there are no objections to this proposal in 7 days, we will close
ISSUE-11: default prefix declarations.

http://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/track/issues/11

The consensus of the group seems to be that it is the job of the Host
Language to define a default RDFa Profile, and thus the default
collection of prefixes and terms:

http://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/sources/rdfa-core/#hostlangconf

Therefore, this is no longer an issue that is specific to the RDFa Core
document. This issue is specific to the XHTML+RDFa and HTML+RDFa
specifications and should not block RDFa Core from going into Last Call.

It was also mentioned that the default RDFa Profile documents for both
XHTML+RDFa and HTML+RDFa should express a number of terms (aka:
LinkTypes) that were previously hard coded in the RDFa Core document.

The exact terms to declare are dependent on resolving ISSUE-35, and only
affect the Host Language default RDFa Profile document (not RDFa Core):

http://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/track/issues/35

As far as prefix declarations are concerned, the group seemed to settle
on the notion that declaring prefixes like foaf and dcterms and leaving
out vocabularies like doap and vcard would generate backlash from each
respective vocabulary community and could be misconstrued as playing
favorites.

The prefixes that are used are largely application dependent. We expect
that RDFa Profiles will be used to declare these application-dependent
prefixes. Rather, it's not the responsibility of the host language to
pick and choose application domain specific vocabularies.

While this still doesn't address the desire for terms like
datatype="xml", and prefixes that are commonly used like "xsd" and
"rdf", declaring some prefixes and not declaring others will most likely
confuse authors and increase the cognitive load of learning and using RDFa.

Therefore, the group is erring on the side of consistency:

1. There will be a default set of terms defined in the default RDFa
   Profile for the host language - largely to provide backwards
   compatibility with HTML4.
2. There will be no prefixes defined in the default RDFa Profile for
   XHTML+RDFa and HTML+RDFa. This includes "rdf" and "xsd".
3. All prefix declarations will be expressed explicitly via @prefix or
   @xmlns statements, or will be placed in RDFa Profile documents for
   inclusion via @profile.

This resolves ISSUE-11, please comment in 7 days from this post if you
object to this approach. If there are no objections within 7 days,
ISSUE-11 will be closed.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
President/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: WebID - Universal Login for the Web
http://blog.digitalbazaar.com/2010/08/07/webid/2/

Received on Thursday, 2 September 2010 15:11:01 UTC