xml-dev - Re: Treaty of Wulai (was Re: simple question on namespaces.)

[Rick Jelliffe <ricko@allette.com.au>]

From: Simon St.Laurent <simonstl@simonstl.com>
> So does this mean you want to formalize what you called the 'lucky dip'
> earlier this year in regard to URIs, where there may be times when
> (namespaceURI=schemaURI) works and other times where it doesn't?

No, I think there can still be a convention established with respects the
different uses.

For example, the convention could be that dereferencng the namespace URI
(when it is an http:, at least) results in:
  * a structural schema (XML Schema, DTD, or HTML documentation, or other
schema like Schematron, RELAX, XDR, SOX, DSD, etc determined by content
negotiation);
  * a semantic schema (RDF Schema) also containing links to structural
schema(s) according to a well-kown convention;
  * some definite kind of directory or resource discovery document, to be
decided, which allows systematic retrieval of lots of different kinds of
resource, including links to semantic and structural schemas;
  * or nothing.

This should be a recommendatation distinct from the Namespaces REC.  This at
least provides a way forward, by blocking out things like allowing the
namespaces URI to be a CSS documents etc.

So rather than seeing the different resources as competitive, it establishes
a hierarchy, where we always know how to get to a structural schema (if one
exists) and a semantic schema (if one exists) by chaining along the
namespace URI.  This would allow the simple use of namespace URI=schema URI,
but also be workable for people who want to provide other or different or
multiple related resources.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe
Academia Sinica