RE: Namespaces and URIs

On 08 Jun 2001 17:43:29 +0300, Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com wrote:
> > > and namespace names must be valid URIs.
> > 
> > no they don't. They only have to be unique and persistent.
> > see http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml-names/#ns-decl
> 
> Read the first part of the second paragraph of section 2, where it
> explicitly states it must be a URI reference.

I misread the rec, sorry about that.

> I think we're mostly in agreement, though there's some disconnect
> in the language, I think. 

So do I :)

> * Namespace names should be URNs, not URLs (names not locations).
> 
> * Names within namespaces should be URNs, not URL refs (names not 
>   locations or fragments of data streams).
> 
> * URLs or URI refs should not be used to identify abstract resources.

except that http: URIs actually identify "generic documents", which
could be quite abstract.
But they are still instanciable as network retrievable documents, so
that excludes a lot of more abstract things...

> That's one side of the problem.
> 
> The other side is:
> 
> * There must be a consistent mapping from QName to full URI for all
>   pairs of namespace name plus QName.
> 
> * Having a single URN scheme (or small set of schemes) permitted to
>   be used as namespace names would greatly simply solving this
>   mapping problem.
> 
> Right?

Agreed.
The intent of my proposition was to introduce such a URN namespace
without changing the uses of XML-Namspaces. But it clearly does not
match the rec, alas...

  Pierre-Antoine

Received on Friday, 8 June 2001 11:18:22 UTC