Re: NEW ISSUE: use RDDL instead of XML Schema at the namespace URI? [i055]

This is now issue 055;
   http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/addr/wd-issues/#i055

On Apr 7, 2005, at 4:34 PM, 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/
>
>
>

--
Mark Nottingham   Principal Technologist
Office of the CTO   BEA Systems

Received on Wednesday, 13 April 2005 22:15:54 UTC