Re: [xml-dev] namespaces redux (was: Re: [xml-dev] [XML Schema] Here's how to empower instance document authors to create their own root element)

Original Message From: "John Cowan"
> Liam R E Quin scripsit:
>
>> A namespace indicates who owns a format, so if ownership changes,
>> sometimes a "v2" namespace becomes appropriate.
>
> IMO all namespace names should contain a year, because the association
> between a domain and the organization that owns it can vary from year
> to year.  "Hackers.com" has been owned by at least four organizations
> that I know of.
>
> NewsML URNs, which are perfectly general and can be used even outside
> NewsML, are of the form urn:newsml:foo.com:yyyymmdd:uniqueid:1, where
> yyyymmdd is any date on which the minter of the URN controlled foo.com.
> Some people use the date on which the URN was minted, others use a
> fixed date.  (1 is the version number, which must increase though not
> necessarily consecutively, so it can be a timestamp.)


I'm a pretty pessimistic sort of chap, but I would still be inclined not to 
bother with the year.  I appreciate what you're saying, but you can always 
call your schema something else if a previous domain owner happens to have 
already used the name you want to use.  The risk doesn't seem to outweigh 
the ugliness and difficulty of remembering a random number to me.  A 
definite case of YMMV though.

Pete Cordell
Codalogic Ltd
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