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RE: xmlns:xml = "???"

• To: 'Tim Bray' <tbray@t...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: xmlns:xml = "???"
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 15:04:34 -0600

And is the problem with address-based unification.  If the 
namespace string is *owned* or it becomes illegal to bind 
any other xmlns prefix to it, (regardless of that being 
bad practice which it is), it makes the landgrab for 
prefixes and uris unavoidable.  I don't think it a shortcoming 
when a spec deliberately avoids trying to specify something 
the provenancing organization cannot control.

Lots of stupid things are legal.  Lots of not so stupid 
things aren't.  We can't tell where the boundaries of 
the application and the system are.  If we think we can 
legislate that, the W3C loses the imprimatur.  No Exit. 
On this one, the spec is right.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@t...]
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 2:55 PM
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject: Re:  xmlns:xml = "???"


At 08:35 PM 28/01/02 +0000, Michael Kay wrote:

>(1) Is it legal to specify
>  xmlns:xml="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace"?
>
>(2) Is it legal to specify
>  xmlns:xml="anything else"?

Both of those are perfectly legal XML 1.0.  The namespaces
spec says nothing about these aside from the "by definition"
phrase that you quote.  The other question you don't ask is
whether it's legal to bind some other prefix to the 
http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace namespace.

So this is a shortcoming in the rec.  I think we can all
agree though that doing any of these things would be really
bad practice. 

>Supplementary questions:
>
>(3) Do xml:space and xml:lang have any defined meaning if
>xmlns:xml="anything else" is specified?

Probably they do, since XML 1.0 binds them to the prefix "xml:".
And probably if that namespace name were bound to some other
prefix, then "otherprefix:lang" wouldn't work.  But once again, 
this would be really really stupid, and if any software raised 
an error and threw it out on grounds of gross stupidity, I 
think that would be within the spirit of the spec.

>(4) Is it legal to specify
>  xmlns:xmlns="anything"?
>(and if not, where does it say so?)

Almost the same answer as for (1) and (2), but I could probably
make a stronger case that this is forbidden by the namespace
rec's assertion that this prefix "is not bound to any namespace
name".  -Tim

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