Re: [xml-dev] Stability of schemas -- frequency of versioning

[Lech Rzedzicki <xchaotic@gmail.com>]

I think one important factor here is adoption of the schema (usually
the schema being a somewhat less abstract representation of a
standard) - if the schema is widely adopted it is indeed advisable to
be conservative with changes, however, if the schema did not gain
appropriate adoption in the domain it describes, often one of the root
causes is that the schema does not describe the domain appropriately
or is simply a too complex solution for a problem - in such case a
full rewrite, even non-backwards compatible is well recommended.
In real life, however, the usual case is that the schema is used by
many, but the group that is unhappy about the schema also needs to be
catered for - in this case you need to maintain two major versions of
the schema or even two separate schemas, the result is fragmentation,
but if you don't do it, someone else will (http://xkcd.com/927/). I
think in such cases it's better to be in governance of the two schemas
than having to maintain compatibility/interoperability with a schema
maintained by someone else.

Lech