xml-dev - Out-Of-Line XLinks: How ?

[Amit Garde <amit@dsl.serc.iisc.ernet.in>]

I've been trying to figure out how some of the features of XLink might be 
implemented, and I hope people on this list might be able to help me...

Some questions about out-of-line links: 

1. If a link linking two documents is not part of either document, how is a 
   person or program browsing either of the two documents to know about the 
   existence of such a link ? 

2. Who is responsible for maintaining out of line linking relationships ? 
   Will there need to be "well known" link servers that all browsers could 
   refer to ? How does one choose an appropriate link server if this is the 
   case ? Is this a completely user-specific choice ? Or is something like a 
   standardised hierarchy of link resolvers (like DNS perhaps) called for ? 
   Will we also then need some sort of a link resolution protocol ?

3. Are there any XLink implementations (with source) available, that support
   out of line links ? (Most of what I've been able to unearth seems to focus
   on the rendering or presentation aspects of extended link not out of line
   links as such). Is anybody working on an XLink API or library that other
   applications (not necessarily web browsers) could use ?

Amit
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| Amit V. Garde                  Database Systems Laboratory, SERC            |
| amit@dsl.serc.iisc.ernet.in    Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India|
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