The 'resource' identified by a namespace name URI should be the namespace

• From: Larry Masinter <masinter@attlabs.att.com>
• Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 13:42:31 -0700
• To: "David Carlisle" <david@dcarlisle.demon.co.uk>, <michaelm@netsol.com>
• Cc: <xml-uri@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <NDBBKEBDLFENBJCGFOIJKEMFCMAA.masinter@attlabs.att.com>

> This is explained, in of all places, the namespace rec. The purpose of
> xml namespaces is to define xml names such that they have scope
> "beyond their containing document" (presumably to the universe, given
> your three choices).
> 
> This is accomplished by giving the namespace a name which is a URI uri
> reference and you can make sure the name is unique by using an
> absolute URI of a resource you control. (but using the URI as the
> namespace name does not mean that the resource _is_ the namespace)


I think that you get into trouble allowing arbitrary URIs as namespace
names, and that the world would work better if it was stated that the
'resource' identified by the namespace name is 'the definition of
the namespace'. 

Since we currently have no technical means to define a namespace other
than to identify it, there is no expectation that a namespace name
be a URI that is dereferencable.

 

Received on Thursday, 1 June 2000 16:46:35 UTC