Re: [SVGMobile12] Missing namespace puts document in error

On Fri, 20 May 2005 13:32:15 +0000 (UTC), Ian wrote:
> According to section C.4:
> 
> # The outermost <svg> element must be defined in the SVG namespace (e.g., 
> # <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">); otherwise the document is in 
> # error.
> 
> This seems like a bogus requirement. If the outermost <svg> element 
> _isn't_ in the SVG namespace, then it isn't an <svg> element, and is out 
> of the scope of this specification, surely.


The WG fully agrees with your statement about how (ideally) it should be 
unnecessary to say that the outermost svg:svg element must be defined in 
the SVG namespace. In fact, earlier SVG specifications indeed did not 
say this. However, an industry interoperability issue has developed 
where an early version of a leading implementation supported 'svg' 
elements without a proper namespace declaration, which caused a good 
amount of SVG content to be created that did not declare its namespace, 
which caused revisions of that implementation and other implementations 
to also support this (incorrectly formed) content.

Because of the history, the SVG WG feels it is necessary to explicitly 
say that the namespace declaration must be provided. If it were not for 
this history, we would not include the sentence you dislike.

Please let us know within two weeks if this does not satisfy your comment.

Received on Tuesday, 25 October 2005 01:29:15 UTC