Re: Uncertainty on xml-dev

Even after the proverbial thousand messages, of Mr. Berners-Lee's
earlier three-point summary, the only convincing point is #3: as long as
the namespace name is a URI, any application layer which understands
URI's should expect to apply the respective semantic to a given URI. If
it says "http://", then it means "HyperText Transfer Protocol". Should
that not be true, then it's time to throw the whole thing out and start
over. That, in itself, stipulates nothing about the nature of the
resource, but if the name should not be interpretable as denoting a
resource, then one should pick something other than the HTTP "namespace" :-)

John Cowan wrote:
> 
> This is a message that just appeared on xml-dev.  I am forwarding it
> here as another indication of the effect of this debate on the
> Real World.  I have stripped identifying marks.
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Subject: Re: Namespace Question
> 
> Today, Somebody wrote:
> 
> >I have a few questions.  If I use the "http:" scheme for
> >a namespace name URI, does it not imply that I should be
> >using the HyperText Transfer Protocol?  Yes?    Why or why not?
> 
> And Somebody Else replied:
> 
> >Three weeks ago I'd have answered "No, it's just a name.  It may look like
> >a URI, but it isn't really, it's just a uniquely identifying text
> >string".  I still hope this is the truth.
> >
> >However, there's currently a serious debate [about 1000 emails in the last
> >two or three weeks] running on more of less this issue on the xml-uri W3C
> >mailing list.  I think all bets are off for the moment :-(
> 
> I submit that this is a Bad Thing.
>

Received on Thursday, 8 June 2000 12:22:50 UTC