RE: [xri] Special XRI TC Telecon Noon PT Friday 2007-08-24

["Barnhill, William" <barnhill_william@bah.com>]

Drummond,

I'd love to attend, but schedule is tight as always (like everyone else's).
Can I just take as action items the production of a RelaxNG version of the
schema, with an XSD translation, and the production of an updated X3
document?  It doesn't seem to make sense for me to chime in too much at this
point on other issues, as I still need to wrap my head around the different
relationship id proposals.

That said I do have a thought on the whole multiple xxxId element issue.
Seems like everyone is trying to define different elements for different
relationships that can link two XRIs. Ref, Backref, and ProviderID I see the
need for, but localID, canonicalId, and globalID could confuse some.  The
need to represent those relationships is obviously there, but isn't there an
easier way?

Putting my money where my mouth is I propose the following simplification
scheme:
..eliminating xrd:XRD/xrd:LocalId, xrd:XRD/xrd:GlobalId, and
xrd:XRD/xrd:CanonicalId and replacing them with xrd:XRD/xrd:ID with a
cardinality of 1 or more.  Wow, I can almost hear the screams now. 

..add the optional attribute xrd:XRD/xrd:ID/@relbase.  This attribute would
be an absolute XRI (this includes http URLs still I believe) and would be
used as the base identifier to convert any relative identifiers in the
xrd:XRD/xrd:ID/@rel attribute (see below) to absolute identifiers.  This
attribute would default to "xri://$xrd*($v*2.0)/rel/" in which case all
relative XRIs in xrd:XRD/xrd:ID/@rel must be ones defined by the spec.

..add the optional attribute xrd:XRD/xrd:ID/@rel.  This attribute would be a
space separated list of 1 or more XRIs (relative or absolute) that act as
tags. This would default to "canonical".

.. Define the following three rel XRIs within the spec:
  .. xri://$xrd*($v*2.0)/rel/canonical
  .. xri://$xrd*($v*2.0)/rel/global
  .. xri://$xrd*($v*2.0)/rel/local
 
This would have the benefits of allowing the funtionality in all of the
current proposals using a simpler syntax, reducing the elements within the
schema by 2, and dramatically increasing XRD extensibility.
 
Since an identifier is not necessarily unique by definition I could see this
being used for all sorts of things.  One example is:

<xrd:ID relbase="xri://@example.org/+"
rel="modifiedBy">=Bill.Barnhill</xrd:ID>

Which brings up another question: Do the relative XRI rules differentiate
between a base XRI of xri://@example.org/+ and one of xri://@example.org/+/
? I hope so, but am not sure. If not then the above example would need to be
changed to the following I think, yes?

<xrd:ID relbase="xri://@example.org/"
rel="+modifiedBy">=Bill.Barnhill</xrd:ID>

Note: Further simplification would be possible if we add an attribute
xrd:XRD/xrd:ID/@authority, defaulting to the parent authority providing the
current XRD. This would allow use of the following rel values:
  .. xri://$xrd*($v*2.0)/rel/provider
  .. xri://$xrd*($v*2.0)/rel/backref
  .. xri://$xrd*($v*2.0)/rel/ref

The parsing implications of this are a slight hit in processing for some XML
parsers, but IMHO the performance gain using the xxxID* schema is not worth
the complexity increase, the decreased extensibility, and the barrier to
adoption of a steeper learning curve. 


The more I think about this the more important I think it is. I'll try to
send more before the meeting.

Thanks,
Bill

-- 
William Barnhill                    Phone: (315) 491-6765
Associate                           Email: barnhill_william@bah.com
Booz | Allen | Hamilton             i-name: =Bill.Barnhill
"Delivering results that endure" 

-----Original Message-----
From: Drummond Reed [mailto:drummond.reed@cordance.net] 
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 12:48 PM
To: xri@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [xri] Special XRI TC Telecon Noon PT Friday 2007-08-24

We will hold a special unofficial XRI TC telecon at noon PT/3PM ET today
regarding the top remaining open issues for XRI Resolution 2.0 Working Draft
11 ED04 (listed at
http://wiki.oasis-open.org/xri/Xri2Cd02/ResWorkingDraft11). Specifically it
will cover the updated synonym proposal at:

	http://wiki.oasis-open.org/xri/XriCd02/SynonymSemantics 

Date:  Friday, 24 August 2007 USA
Time:  12:00PM - 1:00PM Pacific Time

TO ACCESS THE AUDIO CONFERENCE:
    Dial In Number: 571-434-5750
    Conference ID: 5474

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