ietf-mxcomp
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Re: XML name space (was: suggested new RRtype experiment)

2004-05-24 15:58:49


On May 24, 2004, at 6:34 PM, Bob Atkinson wrote:


It MUST be controlled by the standard and not become a prerogative of
every programmer wishing to publish new definitions.  Registering the
XML definitions as a token published with IANA controls this name
space.

[...]

This is not how XML works. Really, it just isn't.


I think what Douglas means to say is that there should be a restriction over and above that which is allowed by XML. Many protocols using XML do this.

However, an IANA registry will provide an application with no more knowledge than an HTTP lookup, which is to say almost none. It is useful only as a place to find the meaning on a token/tag/ns/whatever and its meta-data (who registered it, where is the spec defining the semantics, etc...). There is no protocol police to enforce that only IANA registered tokens appear in the record.

Perhaps we should let Jim get the schema written first and then write up some examples before we seriously talk about such optimizations. (And I admit that I'm guilty of doing this too.)

-andy