> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 3:45 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: [Bug 1426] - Namespace URIs beginning with a #-sign will
> cause errors
>
>
>
> >Quoting from the NS recommendation:
>
> ... is somewhat dangerous. There was a _MASSIVE_ W3C debate last summer
> about what the intent of the Namespaces spec was, versus what some people
> thought it ought to be.
>
> There was no consensus on whether a namespace expressed as a relative URI
> should be compared as a literal string, or "absolutized" in the context of
> the current base URI. As a result, the use of relative URIs as namespace
> names was declared officially Unsupported until such time as this gets
> settled -- which probably means waiting for the "Semantic Web" proposal to
> actually generate a recommendation, if it ever does.
>
> Unsupported means exactly that: If you use a non-absolute URI name,
> _anything_ can happen. It may be taken as a literal. It may be taken
> relative to some base URI (it isn't always clear which!). OR, the
> application may tell you that you're trying to use an undefined behavior
> and should rewrite it in more reliably portable form.
>
> I believe Xerces, and Xalan, have taken that last position. I happen to
> agree with them; encouraging folks to write documents which are inherently
> nonportable would be a Bad Thing, given that XML is supposed to be about
> portable data interchange.
>
> Your milage may vary.
I happen to disagree.
Yes, the W3C has deprecated relative namespace URIs until there's a
consensus about how to treat them. However, they are still legal, and happen
to be used in existing applications. I don't think it's DOM's or XSLT's job
to keep people from using them and I can't see any official word from the
W3C that would defend that.
