Infoset 2-Feb-20001 draft comment items required?

Earlier drafts of Infoset followed the XML 1.0 specification in
making comment items optional.

The 2 Feb 2001 draft appears to require them, which is
inconsistent with the XML 1.0 specification (1st and 2nd editions).

Perhaps the intent is that Infoset specifies the full set of
things that MIGHT exist and be of interest to a markup-
sensitive application, but since XML-related specifications have
had a nasty habit of not distinguishing between the needs of
markup-sensitive applications (editors and generators) and
structure-controlled applications (browsers and other
information consumers), it would be as well if Infoset set
something explicit about this, along the lines of

    Infoset specifies all the information that any XML
    application, including markup-sensitive applications,
    should be able to get, it is an upper bound.  It does
    NOT specify which kinds of elements a structure-
    controlled application must be bothered with; it is
    not a lower bound.

    In particular, the fact that comments, CDATA boundaries,
    and entity boundaries exist does NOT mean that every
    application has to be confronted with them or that they
    must be included in every specification based on Infoset.

Received on Thursday, 15 February 2001 19:44:09 UTC