Use of standardized prefixes when incorporating foreign vocabularies

[Eric Sirois <esirois@ca.ibm.com>]

While helping a user understand/integrate MathML DTD using the foreign
element the example in the proposal it used the mml prefix while the DTD
itself defines the prefix m.  Another example would be the use of namespace
prefix xs and xsd for XML Schemas.  When using DTDs, it is quite possible
that  two different organizations can create two perfectly legal
specializations using two different prefixes.  The topics created based on
the two specialization is no longer shareable.

I think we should also a note of caution to the foreign specialization
topic where the foreign vocabulary has more than one common namespace
prefix, use the standard prefix.
So, mml for MathML, svg for SVG, xsl for XSLT, xsd for XML Schema, etc.

Kind regards,
Eric
Eric A. Sirois
Staff Software Developer
DB2 Universal Database - Information Development
DITA Migration and Tools Development
IBM Canada Ltd. - Toronto Software Lab
Email: esirois@ca.ibm.com
Phone:(905) 413-2841
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