Namespace for bindings and other extension points (was: Latest/This Version URI for Schema/WSDL files)

["Michael Rowley" <mrowley@bea.com>]

Good point Anish.  I suspect that one of us was indeed supposed to bring
this up (I don't recall who, if anyone, was identified).  So, how about
me.

Dear Liason Committee,

The Bindings TC would like guidance on the namespace to use for the
various <binding.xxx> elements that it is in charge of defining.
Specifically, the question is whether the bindings should always use the
same namespace as SCA assembly, or whether they should each use
different namespaces.

The Bindings TC debated this question for a while at its F2F, but agreed
that the approach taken should follow a generally agreed approach that
would also apply to all of the extensibility points in SCA assembly
(such as implementation elements <implementation.xxx> and interface
elements <interface.xxx>).  As such, we think this is an appropriate
issue for the Liason group to tackle.

Argument Kickstart:

At the F2F, we discussed the pros and cons of a few approaches.

Each binding gets its own namespace:
- This approach allows each binding definition to evolve independently
from other binding definitions and independent of SCA as a whole.

Everything in one "SCA" namespace:
- This approach gives the user of SCA a set of technologies that are
known to work together.  If each binding/implementation/etc evolved
independently, then the user would be hard pressed to figure out which
collection of them actually worked together.
- Having one namespace means that there are fewer prefixes to define at
the top of the various SCDL files (this seemed to carry less weight than
the previous point).

Both:
- Perhaps it is possible to define bindings/implementations/etc in their
own namespace, but then also create a overarching namespace that brings
together "blessed" versions of each candidate technology.  XML Schema
may not have good ways of doing this (I don't know), but in the
worst-case, the element definitions could be repeated in a different
namespace.

No decision was made, but it was my impression that the last of these
approaches carried the greatest appeal, if the details could be worked
out.

Michael



-----Original Message-----
From: Anish Karmarkar [mailto:Anish.Karmarkar@oracle.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 3:13 PM
To: Michael Rowley
Cc: Mike Edwards; opencsa-liaison@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [opencsa-liaison] Latest/This Version URI for Schema/WSDL
files

Michael,

Since we are the liaison reps from binding, were we (or was I) supposed
to do this?

-Anish
--

Michael Rowley wrote:
> +1
> 
> I don't think a meeting is necessary for this one, but I believe that 
> the binding TC was looking for input from the Liason committee 
> regarding whether or not the bindings should be in the SCA namespace, 
> a binding specific namespace, or both.  I thought that someone from 
> Bindings was going to be formally asking the Liason committee to 
> provide a recommendation on that.
> 
> Michael