Re: Copyrighting schemas, Hailstorm (strayed a bit)

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

>     URIs aren't designed to 
> be namespace identifiers per se.  They are co-opted into 
> that as a side effect of their uniqueness.  

If that "I" in "URI" didn't signify "Identifier", I might be
tempted to agree, but as it is ... I can only hope that
you mean to say that using identifiers to denote one
kind of thing ("namespace") is as arbitrary a choice as
using them to denote another ("person", "location",
and so on).

Identifiers are void of meaning.  Meaning comes from
the context in which they're interpreted.  Much confusion
came from assuming that the only context in which
URIs would be used is a "fetch contents" operation,
despite specifications clearly stating otherwise.

- Dave