LC-23 using 2000 not 1999 in namespace

Dear Mr. Falk:

The W3C XML Schema Working Group has spent the last several months
working through the comments received from the public on the last-call
draft of the XML Schema specification.  We thank you for the comments
you made on our specification during our last-call comment period, and
want to make sure you know that all comments received during the
last-call comment period have been recorded in our last-call issues
list (http://www.w3.org/2000/05/12-xmlschema-lcissues).

Among other issues, you raised the point registered as issue LC-23,
which suggests that the namespace for XML Schema use the year 2000
rather than the year 1999 (or at least asks whether this will change).

The WG discussed these issues at some length; some members of the WG
felt that it would be better to have an unchanging namespace name
(which would mean sticking with 1999, which is when the namespace name
was first requested); others felt that it would be better to have a
new namespace name for each version of the specification (or at least
for each one with incompatible changes).  Others felt the entire
problem was not usefuly soluble in the absence of a general W3C-wide
discussion of versioning problems and a general strategy for handling
them.

In the end, the WG agreed to a policy of making the target namespace
of the schema for schemas vary and take forms similar to

   http://www.w3.org/2000/08/xml-schema

so that the year and month in which the schema language took the
documented form are present in the URI.  (This is not necessarily
the date of publication of the spec, particularly for revisions
which do not make incompatible changes to the language.)

It would be helpful to us to know whether you are satisfied with the
decision taken by the WG on this issue, or wish your dissent from the
WG's decision to be recorded for consideration by the Director of
the W3C.

with best regards,

-C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
  World Wide Web Consortium
  Co-chair, W3C XML Schema WG

Received on Monday, 9 October 2000 13:11:11 UTC