RE: [dita] Proposal for DITA namespaces

["Paul Grosso" <pgrosso@arbortext.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eliot Kimber [mailto:ekimber@innodata-isogen.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, 2004 August 03 10:08
> To: Erik Hennum
> Cc: dita@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [dita] Proposal for DITA namespaces
> 
> Erik Hennum wrote:
> 
> > The DITA DTDs have seen much more use and attention than the
> > Schemas.  (Even so, there have been flaws.)  Because of the
> > greater attention and the stability of DTD implementations,
> > DTDs pose less risk than Schemas.
> > 
> > All that said, I for one would very much like to see DITA
> > enhanced with a namespace scheme.  We would need to find a
> > good way to do it and to avoid delay because of it.
> 
> In this discussion I see the following questions:
> 
> 1. Does DITA need namespaces? I say "absolutely", Erik is 
> saying "very 
> probably". I'm not sure if there is wider concensus one way 
> or the other.

I'm saying, not for 1.0.  

In developing the charter for this TC, we said the idea for 1.0 
was basically to "rubber stamp" the existing IBM DITA stuff.  I 
fear adding namespaces is not that trivial an addition.

> 
> 2. If there are name spaces, how many and how will they be 
> used? This is 
> very much an open question and will require experimentation 
> and thought. 

I agree--another reason I'd rather wait until after 1.0.

> And I will re-iterate my position on the need for namespaces, 
> irrespective of the element type declaration mechanism used: 
> there is no 
> other standard way in XML to unambiguously declare that a document 
> conforms to a particular set of rules. 

Yes there is.  We say so.  DITA is working now for many people.
While I don't disagree that adding namespaces may be useful
in the future, I fail to see how it is a disaster to have DITA 1.0
be what DITA is currently.  In fact, I fear it will be a bigger
disaster to make DITA 1.0 something that is non-trivially
different from what is already deployed in many places.

paul