Namespace definition and version handling

[Stefan Drees <stefan@drees.name>]

Dear all,

as discussed in meeting #117 on 2013-05-13 we are currently collecting 
further design relevant ideas on where and how to version (or even date) 
our specified profiles and other work products.

Starting point was the transition from the traditional URN style 
identifcation of namespaces into a URL style where dereferencability is 
at least imaginable, that is a consumer of a message might be able to 
directly derive a location information from a namspace id and 
subsequently use this id in a HTTP/S transaction to optain a copy of the 
resource.

As a message always has a context it is sent in (and with) the native 
place for versioning to separate dialects from each other is inside the 
transport and not inside the message.

This of course also depends on the further disposition of the message 
and sometimes even the message is in the transport (like a HTTP status 
code etc.).

In the Open Data context, the TC discussed exactly this question, if 
namespace ids should be versioned (i.e. postfixed by some string being 
meant as versions or dates or whatever leading to semantic version 
comparability like later, earlier or larger, smaller).

The processing is documented somehow at:

http://oasis.odata.ws/Issues%28204%29/Meetings

and the issue at:

https://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/ODATA-204

I hope it helps.

All the best,

Stefan.