xml-dev - Who would "bless" a Schema subset? (was Re: XML Schemas: Needs Marketing

["Michael Champion" <Mike.Champion@softwareag-usa.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill la Forge" <b.laforge@jxml.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2000 8:59 PM
Subject: Re: XML Schemas: Needs Marketing?


> From: Dave Hollander <dmh@commerce.net>
> > PS. Regarding "heavy" schemas: I do not see why someone could not
> > use a sub-set of XML Schemas to achieve a easy to learn and use
> > schema language. If anyone has ideas on this application profile,
> > let me know.
>

 From: "Bill la Forge" <b.laforge@jxml.com>
>
> Such a sub-set could have tremendous utility, both for simplified
implementations
> and as a means of learning the larger schema.
>
> I think it should be possible, though I have no idea of the effort
required, to
> define a standard subset roughly equivalent to DTDs. But I suspect such a
> standard would have great value.


I agree that such a standard would have great value.  But what organization
would produce and issue such a standard?  It would be nice (IMHO) if the W3C
would define different "feature sets" or "conformance levels" in the Schema
spec, one of which would be the "roughly equivalent to DTD subset".  This
does not seem to be the W3C Way, however: while many people won't want to
have to implement or learn the entire XML Schema in order to get their work
done, the W3C probably doesn't want to sanction subsets that confuse the
"brand" and complicate interoperability.

So, how would such a "Simplified Schema" specification get defined and
blessed if the W3C doesn't do it?  Oasis? the IETF? An ad-hoc mailing list
like the XML-DEV activity that produced SAX or the current SML-DEV activity?
A new organization? Maybe whatever the right answer here is the same as the
answer to "who should take over SAX"?

Another thing that I wonder about ... Does the W3C "own" the trademarks to
things like "XML Schema"? I know I can't produce something called "Cheap
Cheerios" and not get sued by General Mills ... or "Simple Windows" and not
get sued by Microsoft. Can someone define "The DTD subset of XML Schema" and
not get sued by the W3C?   The naming issue is important (and a Frequently
Debated Question on SML-DEV, which wrestles with a similar issue).

Anyway, I'm just hoping to get some opinions exchanged on how the world
might "standardize" things like a Schema subset (and perhaps a DOM subset,
an XSLT subset, etc.) without either depending on the W3C or incurring their
wrath.