xml-dev - namespace joy?

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

After the usual violence, it sounds like we may have an opportunity to
finally resolve some of these namespace URI issues and escape the cycle of
endless namespace discussion - while helping an enormous number of people
apply namespaces in creative and useful ways.

I think Tim Bray [1] pointed the way forward:
>I think that if you got a group of qualified people, mostly
>computer programmers, together, you could cook, in a few 
>weeks, cook up a nice little markup vocabulary containing
>[XHTML+XLink catalogues]

There seems to be a lot (for a holiday weekend, and especially for anything
involving namespaces) of enthusiasm:
>Nice.  A human *and* machine readable catalogue as a
>mixture of XHTML, XLink, etc.  What are we waiting for?

>I'm glad of Tim's recent clarifications.  They help me marshal my own
>thoughts and prepare to move on, invoking a modified form of the Treaty of
>Wulai.

>Blimey, this is a good idea...

>Both of these work for me.

>Sounds like a good plan; and not so far what we've already seen deployed
>for RSS and Dublin Core.

To me, these comments, which come from people with a wide variety of
viewpoints in this discussion, suggest that Tim's basically got it right.
Rick Jelliffe has some important concerns about differing viewpoints [2]
which I think need to be considered, but I'm think interoperability with
those approaches is definitely possible.

We've had a number of proposals ([1] [3] [4] [5]) which I think provide a
solid starting point, despite differences in details.  I'd like to think we
can agree on a core set of needs, basically a catalog list of resource
locations and type identifiers in some kind of context, and reach some kind
of useful agreement quickly.  

I'm not sure XML-Dev's authority will be enough to make this work in the
world, but I'd like to think that we can at least point a way forward.  And
maybe we can make a New Year's resolution to not be in the same discussion
this time next year.


[1] - http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200012/msg00720.html
[2] - http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200012/msg00741.html
[3] - http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200012/msg00725.html
[4] - http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200012/msg00728.html
[5] - http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200012/msg00729.html (summary)
Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books