Namespace Policies (esp. USA)

["Paul Spencer" <paul.spencer@boynings.co.uk>]

Dear colleagues,

 

I am currently writing a namespace policy as part of an eGIF.

 

In my search for best practice, I came across “Recommended XML Namespace for Government Organizations  GS301L1/March 2003 By Jessica L. Glace and Mark R. Crawford” This is a US policy shown as a draft from 2003. Does anyone know the current status of this? Is there a federal namespace policy in the US? Does anyone know of other “best practice” policies in this area (Government or not)?

 

Meanwhile, I am debating the perennial URL .v. URN problem. People find the use of URLs for namespaces confusing, and I am working with a Government where XML use is not yet very sophisticated. To me, this makes the use of URNs preferable, but obviously more work for the client in terms of registration. It also means we can’t put namespace information at the target location of a URL as, say, the W3C does. The registration process for a formal URN namespace ID also seems insanely complicated. The document above recommended URNs, and of course, that is what OASIS uses. Reference to other use of URNs for namespace URIs would be useful if we go that way. I doubt that I could justify this when most of the world (apart from OASIS) has gone a different way. And I suspect the reason for this is usually (or always) because URLs are easier to allocate.

 

And finally, is anyone on this list using RDDL?

 

Regards

 

Paul Spencer

 

 

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