> -----Original Message-----
> From: Asbj�rn Ulsberg [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 7:12 PM
> To: Tim Bray
> Cc: Atom-Syntax
> Subject: Re: Atom namespace name

[snip]

> Having the namespace URI point to an informational, 
> human-readable HTML  
> page is imho extremely important for Atom if we want it to be 
> �newbie� and  
> �View Source Clan� friendly. If we want it to be by techies 
> for techies,  
> any URI scheme will do the job.

The reason that this sort of reference has been a problem for the IETF is
that it's not a stable part of the standard.  The content can change over
time, with no community control.  Plus, the primary purpose of the URI in
this context is to uniquely identify a namespace -- and no more per recent
IETF practice.

I know that some view the ability to dereference a URL as one of the
strengths of the http URL approach.  I can guarantee, though, that it will
raise issues that we really don't need to get involved with when it comes
time for broad review of the specifications.  As I told Tim in our off-list
conversation, I'm not going to argue that the working group can't use http
URLs to identify namespaces.  You're just going to have to come up with a
VERY compelling reason for their use -- and the argument that they can be
used to provide a pointer to additional information is probably NOT the one
you want to use for just the reasons I provided above.

-Scott-


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