RE: Significant W3C Confusion over Namespace Meaning and Policy

>I'm puzzled how XML base should change it's namespace given 
>it's the addition of a name into the reserved set of names 
>beginning with the characters 'x' 'm' 'l' that's at stake. 

Well, in trying not to repeat the entire thread that occurred
on the xml id list, I omitted this because I thought members
of the tag might be more aware of what the namespace rec 
says than others.

Does not reserve a set of names that begin with xml.  It
reserves a set of *namespace prefix* names that begin with
xml.  It does not reserve the list of names associated with the
namespace URI assigned to the prefix xml for future use of
xml-related specifications.

On the other hand the namespaces rec does define a namespace
as a collection of names plus a uri.  So whether or not the
uri changes when the list of names changes, the namespace is
changed when the list of names changes.

So, adding base or id to the xml namespace changes the namespace.

Now the separate discussion arises whether this should be allowed.

Thing is, the URI "identifies" the collection of names.  Since you 
can't have two different collections of names that are identical,
changing the collection of names should imply the obligation to 
change the URI too.  The W3C pub rules have supported this 
interpretation when it says that namespaces should not be changed
in this way in order to "give a specification the necessary stability."

Cheers,
John Boyer, Ph.D.
Senior Product Architect and Research Scientist
PureEdge Solutions Inc.

Received on Thursday, 10 February 2005 17:24:31 UTC