(formatted) proposed namespace URI versioning policy

All, 

I have taken a stab at a proposed namespace versioning policy, that would 
be stated both in the 
specification and in the namespace document (RDDL). This is derived from 
other standards work, 
most specifically the OASIS WS-RX TC's policy for it namespace. 

Proposed Namespace URI Versioning Policy: 

It is the intent of the W3C WS-Policy Working Group that the WS-Policy 
Framework v1.5 and 
WS-Policy Attachment v1.5 namespace URI will not change arbitrarily with 
each subsequent revision 
of the corresponding XML Schema documents but rather change only when a 
subsequent revision, 
published as a WD, CR or PR draft results in non-backwardly compatible 
changes from a previously 
published WD, CR or PR draft of the specification. 

Under this policy, the following are examples of backwards compatible 
changes that would not result 
in assignment of a new namespace URI: 

* addition of new global element, attribute, complexType and simpleType 
definitions
* addition of new elements or attributes in locations covered by a 
previously specified wildcard 
* modifications to the pattern facet of a type definition for which the 
value-space of the previous 
   definition remains valid or for which the value-space of the 
preponderance of instance would remain valid 
* modifications to the cardinality of elements for which the value-space 
of possible instance documents 
   conformant to the previous revision of the schema would still be valid 
with regards to the revised 
   cardinality rule

Cheers, 

Christopher Ferris
STSM, Software Group Standards Strategy
email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
blog: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/dw_blog.jspa?blog=440
phone: +1 508 377 9295