Re: NEW ISSUE: use RDDL instead of XML Schema at the namespace URI?

+1

If it can be a single resource I would have preferred it to be the XML 
schema associated in this case but,
given the need to associate more than one document with the namespace, 
RDDL is a preferred approach.

Prasad

Jonathan Marsh wrote:

>Background:
>
>As many of you are aware, there is an ongoing debate on what kind of
>resource should be placed at the namespace URI.  The TAG has been unable
>to recommend a practice in this area, despite a lot of discussion.
>
>The W3C, AIUI, has a policy that there should be some document at the
>namespace URI, but does not enforce a particular format.  In general
>namespace URIs seem to return HTML documents.
>
>There are also many proponents of RDDL [1], which is simply an XHTML
>document with some machine-processable XLinks in it pointing to
>associated resources like schemas.
>
>Justification:
>
>One advantage of RDDL is that it would enable one to discover, through
>the namespace URI, a number of schemas for the namespace.  This is
>especially interesting when errata are taken into account.  The WS-I BP
>promulgated some fixes to the WSDL 1.1 schema, but since it is also
>desirable to have a stable document at the namespace URI, it published
>alternative dated versions with various fixes in them, and pointed to
>those dated versions from the spec.  It might have been simpler and more
>discoverable to find all the related (dated) schemas through a RDDL
>document at the namespace URI.
>
>Proposal:
>
>Place a RDDL document at each of the namespace URIs defined by WS-A.
>Provide a "latest schema" link as well as dated links to the schema.
>State in the document that the resources (schemas) at the dated links
>are immutable, the list of dated schemas may grow to incorporate fixes,
>and the latest schema link will always point to the latest.
>
>A necessary related change to the specs is for sections of the specs
>which say that a schema is available "at" the namespace URI to be
>updated to say "through" the namespace URI, or some such.
>
>Caveat:
>
>Microsoft feels there are some benefits to this proposal to the extent
>that it doesn't take us down the rabbit hole of attempting to solve the
>general problem of what should go at a namespace URI.  We would prefer
>the status quo to spending significant amounts of time on this subject.
>
>[1] http://www.rddl.org/
>
>  
>

Received on Friday, 8 April 2005 21:37:02 UTC