Re: [xml-dev] xlink 1.1

[rjelliffe@allette.com.au]

> I guess that means we'll eventually be seeing updates of a wide variety
> of specs that see relatively little use.  That's not all bad.  In the
> case of XLink, though, it really highlighted for me that even a spec
> that utterly failed to build a community is still sort of somehow
> marching along.

?? I don't know that XLink was ever intended to build a community in that
sense: xlink is utility conventions. You don't talk of an XML Namespaces
community either: both are something that people use or don't use to get
some other job done. MathML, that is a community. RDF, HTML, SVG. You
wouldn't have expected an XLink conference, for example.

I don't know, for example, that it is even possible to have a complete
XLink library (e.g. in Java), except perhaps a set of interfaces or
abstract classes. Not specific enough semantics.

But I do agree that XLink could have been bigger. We ended up with a
linking system with no semantics and usable syntax in XLink and a linking
system with strong semantics and unusable syntax in (initial) RDF. RDFa
still is not officially defined over XML (neither officially nor workable
in practice), so there I think there is still good potential for people to
use XLink+GRDDL.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe