schema in MarkUp vs Date space... and referencing them from MarkUp Languages...

While publishing the PR for XHTML Basic 1.1 and XHTML M12N 1.1 we ran 
into an interesting problem.  Some years ago we (as a working group) 
agreed to migrate our schema to MarkUp/ space on w3.org to facilitate 
more rapid updating in the event problems were found in our module 
implementations.  While that is more or less fine, it created a couple 
of problems:

1) People who want to reference an absolutely fixed version of our 
schema have no way to do so because we have NO date space version.
2) People who were using TR/xhtml-modularization suddenly had their 
markup languages break cause we removed the DTDs when we went PR with 1.1.

We solved the second issue (quickly) by ensuring that all our module 
implementations are included in the PR draft of XHTML M12N 1.1.  This 
should be done by the time you read this.  However, IanJ suggested that 
we consider amending our policy so that we can satisfy people who want 
the very latest implementations, as well as people who want 
implementations that will not change.  His suggestion simplifies down to 
having two pointers in our specs... one that points to the current 
version, and one that points to the unique name of the module(s) in 
MarkUp space.

I think that this suggestion makes sense, but I also think it becomes 
much more complex when talking about markup languages....  I suspect 
that a MarkUp Language implementation (e.g. XHTML 1.1's DTD) should 
point to date space in its normative version.  The definition of the 
language should not change unless we want it to change.  But there are 
other people using our implementations, and I am not certain how to 
advise them.  Moreover, I think that it is important we ensure we 
continue to have the flexibility to update our implementations as we 
find problems with them.  Normative definitions of the language are a 
good thing, but broken ones are useless.

I guess I am looking for suggestions.  Perhaps we could find some time 
to discuss this at the f2f?

On a related note, we should consider making the latest version link for 
m12n xhtml-modularization1 so that we can start working on 
xhtml-modularization2 and not collide!

-- 
Shane P. McCarron                          Phone: +1 763 786-8160 x120
Managing Director                            Fax: +1 763 786-8180
ApTest Minnesota                            Inet: shane@aptest.com

Received on Monday, 16 June 2008 21:02:09 UTC