TAG feedback on Namespaces 1.1 last call

For some months the TAG has had an open issue
(http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/ilist#namespaceDocument-8) concerning what a
"Namespace Document" should be - i.e., what does a Namespace Name point at?

At our September face-to-face we discussed this issue and, whereas we
have not completed this discussion, there is substantial sentiment that 
the Namespace Recommendation's (relative) silence on this issue is often 
interpreted as lack of clarity and has been a cause of serious ongoing 
concern among those who implement and use namespaces.

The TAG feels that Namespace Documents, while not required, are useful, 
and that a proposal along the lines of RDDL (see http://www.rddl.org), 
with its directory entries provided in either the current XLink 
formulation or perhaps in RDF, points the way to a Best Practice for the 
kind of document that SHOULD be served as a representation of the 
resource identified by a namespace URI.  The TAG is taking the 
initiative and will be publishing such a proposal in the near future.

The TAG understands that this falls outside the current scope and 
schedule constraints governing Namespaces 1.1

However, the TAG feels that this issue should not continue to go 
unaddressed, and so we are putting this comment on the record in the 
context of the current Namespaces 1.1 Last Call, to help ensure that it 
is taken up and dealt with in the foreseeable future.

Tim Bray, on behalf of the W3C TAG

Received on Wednesday, 25 September 2002 22:19:45 UTC