Re: Resource Gloss (Human Readable)

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

From: Jonathan Borden <jborden@mediaone.net>

>     The reason "Namespace" is not in "RDDL" is that resource directories
are
> themselves independent of namespace URIs. You can insert the XHTML based
> RDDL document anywhere you have the term "ResourceDirectory" above and get
> exactly the desired functionality.
>
>     It does turn out that this does provide a solution for the otherwise
> contensious and nasty problem of what a namespace URI ought resolve to.

No. it does not, because the same kind of idea has been mooted time and time
again and it is not what a large group of users and developers expect or
want, unfortunately.   I completely disagree that there should be any
expectation of human-readable documentation an http: Namespace URI ref.
What should be retrievable should be up to the discretion of the information
provider as long as it can be fitted into a general conceptual framework.
Even XML Schemas will sometimes be downloaded (e.g. to supply attribute
defaults),  so to force an extra indirection imposes too much.

I like the rddl:resource  element and, obviously, I think it is good to have
a directory format for related resources, but I don't like the idea that
namepace "ought" to equal ExplicitRDDL.  I really don't like the idea of
partitioning the world into "RDDL-using XML" and "non-RDDL-ing XML",
especially when allowing freedom can be reconciled so easily.

I don't see that RDDL "solves" the namespaces problem, because the problem
is not "what is the best thing a namespace URL ought to point to?" but "how
do we support what people are doing and want to do with namespace URIs?"   I
am not sure how RDDL can flourish if it ignores the people who actually are
overloading the namespace URI for retrieving useful things now.

Rick Jelliffe