[tei-council] time to really allow instance to name schema?

Syd Bauman Syd_Bauman at Brown.edu
Sun Feb 18 23:47:08 EST 2007


Dept: re-opening a can of worms :-)

Two straw-man proposals have been put forward to two separate groups
for a PI that would permit an XML document instance to name a schema
or schemas against which it is (supposed to be) valid. 

In April 2005 I wrote a document that at the time was circulated only
among the TEI Council members:
   http://www.tei-c.org/Drafts/edw89.xml?style=printable

In July 2005 MURATA Makoto wrote a document that at the time was
circulated to the new Relax NG user's mailing list:
   http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~eb2m-mrt/hidden/spec.html

In both cases the documents are just proposals of their authors, not
position papers of the organizations they sometimes represent. In
both cases the syntax of a PI that an XML document may use to point
to a schema is described. In both cases the intent is that the PI
itself is optional and repeatable, and that while processors may want
to make use of the information, they are not required to.

This issue fostered some discussion on the rng-users list back in
summer 2005, with some objecting to the idea of a schema-pointing PI
(Tommie Usdin I recall was among them).

TEI P5 needs to be finished up soon, and it would be a good idea, I
think, to have this particular issue settled well before it is
published. Because TEI is so customizable, it is quite helpful for
the user if an instance can point to its schema. In general, the TEI
would be as happy or happier if someone else (read OASIS) came up
with the specification for this process, so that TEI P5 could refer
to it. My instinct is that a PI is the right place for this
information, but I'm not even sure that is a given.

I don't think there is really that much work to be done in this area
to come up with a unified proposal. Does any one else think it is
worth any effort? Is this something that comes under the jurisdiction
of the OASIS Relax NG Technical Committee? 




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