Re: RFC2518 (WebDAV) / RFC2396 (URI) inconsistency

> Now the situation is a bit different: using "DAV:" as namespace name is not
> only considered "bad practice", it's plain wrong. In a perfect world, the
> WebDAV WG could now just pick a better namespace name, everybody would be
> updating their servers and clients... But this isn't a perfect world, and I
> feel that we need a less intrusive solution.

How is making a normative change to an Internet Draft Standard a less
intrusive change?  I can rewrite all of the W3C's recommendations and
pass them through that process faster than I can change 2396 and all
of the implementations of URI references.  In any case, I wouldn't
change the definition of URI -- at most, the definition of URI-reference
would change, and even then only if it were warranted by implementations
that are believed to be correct.

If the XML namespaces spec is broken, fix it.  If it isn't broken,
then fix WebDAV.  Both of those communities are miniscule in comparison.
What matters to URI is whether or not "DAV:" is believed to be a valid URI
reference, and the fact is that it is not and therefore the standard
for URI references should not be changed.  XML namespaces needs to decide
if the xmlns value is actually a URI-reference or something more like a
URI prefix, and if the latter is true they should update that spec.
Otherwise, WebDAV is broken and must be fixed on its own.  That is the
nature of one immature standard depending on other more mature standards
for its specification.

....Roy

Received on Tuesday, 20 November 2001 16:07:08 UTC