RE: OASIS Naming Rules

[<martin.me.roberts@bt.com>]

Dear all,
	I really did not want to open a can of worms.  I just wanted
some guide lines on how we might name our namespaces and also if we
chose http:// based ones that we might have a home to which the URL
pointed.

	The message I am hearing is that it is a can of worms and that
we are probably best to resove it at TC level.  As to the home fo rthe
schema files etc I think I will take it up with Scott and see if there
can be a space outside KAVI for some of this info or a URL rediction
tool that can work for http://oasis-open.org/tc/tcame/....

	As to the use of versioning.  Well I really did not expect the
debate I expected a dictated solution from the Oasis board as I feal
this kind of thing is part of the brand as in the W3C, but hey I am sure
people will now say that even they are inconsistent:)

Martin Roberts 
xml designer, 
BT Exact
e-mail: martin.me.roberts@bt.com 
tel: +44(0) 1473 609785  clickdial
fax: +44(0) 1473 609834
Intranet Site :http://twiki.btlabs.bt.co.uk/twiki



-----Original Message-----
From: Eve L. Maler [mailto:Eve.Maler@Sun.COM] 
Sent: 24 February 2004 15:50
To: Norman Walsh
Cc: Eduardo Gutentag; Roberts,MME,Martin,XSG3 R;
scott.mcgrath@oasis-open.org; ebxml-bp@lists.oasis-open.org;
cam@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: OASIS Naming Rules


(Norm and I have had this discussion before...)

Norman Walsh wrote:
> From a software point of view, changing:
> 
>   urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.0:assertion
> 
> to
> 
>   urn:oasis:names:tc:SAML:2.1:assertion
> 
> has exactly the same semantics as changing it to
> 
>   urn:blorty:warble:brrr:its:cold:outside
> 
> There's no way to preserve existing semantics if you do that. Many 
> languages (HTML, DocBook, XSLT, ...) expect V2.1 of the language to be

> "mostly the same as" V2.0 so they use the same namespace name and 
> transmit version information in some other way. (Or not at all.)

Yes, but...  Many languages declare their intentions ahead of time for 
what constitutes a "namespace version upgrade", which gives you the 
ability to predict tighter semantics for an n.m to n.m+1 change or an 
n.m to an n+1.0 change.  SAML is one; it will stick with n.0 until a 
major backwards-compatible revision is done, and anything in that 
namespace that *hasn't* been changed will have the same semantics as it 
used to.

And if you register a URN namespace foo, you have the right to 
officially declare that urn:foo:...:... has subfields that mean 
particular things, and thus you can make such intentions formal.

	Eve
-- 
Eve Maler                                        +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems                            cell +1 781 354 9441
Web Products, Technologies, and Standards    eve.maler @ sun.com