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   Re: [xml-dev] The truth about standards...

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Oh, is Gosling saying standards were accepted (by other people)
before they are written? I took it to mean that he is claiming
that standards have been accepted (by standards bodies) before
they have been written. 

From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
 
> Take a look at the Draft Federal Standard for 
> XML Developers.  Note that it prefers W3C specs 
> over works from other organizations even if the 
> W3C specs are works in progress.   So in a policy 
> document, the sort of thing Gosling mentions is 
> indeed happening.

How do you get that?  In
http://xml.gov/documents/in_progress/developersguide.pdf

it merely says that full standards must be used, and where there
is competition, favour a W3C Recommendation.  If there is a
W3C Proposed Recommendation, you may decide to favour
that if you commit to upgrading when the Rec comes out.

"Ensure" is a funny word to use, and may have some American public 
service meaning, I suppose, but on the face of it, if there is no WXS REC 
in sight, you should fallback to another standard, and if there are 
no standards, you are then (naturally) in the province of proprietary or 
custom applications.  They need to clarify.

It also specifically mentions and allows ISO, ebXML and OASIS standards.
Indeed, if there is an ISO or OASIS standard and a proprietary 
technology, people must choose the standard.
 
Then it goes on to say "use XML Schemas" (unless you are continuing
with SGML-ish DTD projects).  This specifically shuts the door
on using DTDs and RELAX NG for being the published structure definition
languages for public schemas.  

It seems that Schematron (assuming it is accepted as an ISO standard) 
would fit in OK if used to augment a primary WXS schema. The mention
of annotations suggests that embedded Schematron is OK too.  In particular,
it would not be a "proprietary extension" and could not be used to "define
structures": instead it is providing (executable) documentation on things like 
links to external vocabularies and co-occurrence constraints, which are
out-of-scope for WXS. 

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe




 

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