What is a namespace ... really?

[Tim Bray]

At 02:42 PM 1/16/99 -0500, Borden, Jonathan wrote:
>The
>question is whether a namespace has meaning outside of the name, or what
>meaning does the namespace uri have?

No meaning.  It's just a name.

>
>	some people suggest it is just a unique name. others suggest it 
>ought to
>point to a DTD, and others a schema. this issue is still under debate

There are lots of interesting potential uses of the namespace URI.  None
of them are either blessed or forbidden by the namespace spec.  For now,
it's a name and that's all it is.

>for
>example dave megginson states to the effect that the namespace uri ought
>have no meaning beyond a unique name (dave, i hope i've summarized you
>correctly :-) but andrew layman believes otherwise (correct?)

What Dave says is what the spec says.  Since Andrew co-wrote the spec,
I'd be surprised if he were saying anything different. -Tim

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