XHTML: public identifier pollution?

The XHTML 1.0 DTDs include these entity declarations:

    <!ENTITY % HTMLlat1 PUBLIC
       "-//W3C//ENTITIES Latin1//EN//HTML"
       "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/HTMLlat1x.ent">
    <!ENTITY % HTMLsymbol PUBLIC
       "-//W3C//ENTITIES Symbols//EN//HTML"
       "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/HTMLsymbolx.ent">
    <!ENTITY % HTMLspecial PUBLIC
       "-//W3C//ENTITIES Special//EN//HTML"
       "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/HTMLspecialx.ent">

Those formal public identifiers, however, are already used by the HTML
4.0 DTDs to refer to different things:

    <!ENTITY % HTMLlat1 PUBLIC
       "-//W3C//ENTITIES Latin1//EN//HTML"
       "http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/HTMLlat1.ent">
    <!ENTITY % HTMLsymbol PUBLIC
       "-//W3C//ENTITIES Symbols//EN//HTML"
       "http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/HTMLsymbol.ent">
    <!ENTITY % HTMLspecial PUBLIC
       "-//W3C//ENTITIES Special//EN//HTML"
       "http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424/HTMLspecial.ent">

Isn't this a needless source of confusion?  Wouldn't it be better for
the XHTML FPIs to be distinct?  For example:

    "-//W3C//ENTITIES Latin1//EN//XHTML"

Alexander Holt
University of Edinburgh
<alexander.holt@ed.ac.uk>

Received on Friday, 11 June 1999 06:34:50 UTC