xml-dev - Namespaces, URIs

[Amy Lewis <amyzing@talsever.com>]

I realize that this prolly ought to be on the uri discussion list
rather than here, but I'm not there, and there's been some discussion
here, at least.

I understand that a URL is-a URI by definition (RFC 2396).  According
to that, URI is the superset of URLs and URNs.

So, okay.  The URL specification (check the abstract in RFC 2718)
specifies both a syntax and a semantic--a URL is a "compact string
representation of the location for a resource that is available via the
Internet."

In the usage of namespaces that claims that the namespace identifier is
a URI, not a URL, what *is* that namespace identifier?  The URI spec
doesn't say that URIs are a collection of things that have the same
syntax as URLs and URNs but possibly different semantics.  It says URLs
and URNs.  So, if the namespace identifer has the same syntax as a URL,
but not at all the same semantics (because it isn't actually a
locator), then is it a URI at all?

And if one wants to divorce namespace identifiers from the location
semantics, wouldn't it be better to use URNs?

Amy!
-- 
Amelia A. Lewis          alicorn@mindspring.com          amyzing@talsever.com
There are two major products that came out of Berkeley: LSD and BSD Unix.
We don't believe this to be a coincidence.

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