[OAI-implementers] namespaces not resolving

[Simeon Warner]

In defense of the LoC/MARC-XML folks, as late as the March 2003 draft 
of AWWW [1] there was no clear recommendation about namespace documents, 
and MARC21/slim was released way back in 2002. However, since current best 
practices have settled around the current AWWW recommendations it would 
be nice if the LoC/MARC-XML folks made the namespace URI resolve... anyone 
listening?

This also serves as a wake-up that we should make the OAI namespace URIs
resolve too (none of which give anything useful at present):

http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/1.1/oai_marc
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/1.1/eprints
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai-identifier
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/rights/
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/branding/
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/gateway/
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/friends/
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/provenance
http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/static-repository

I wish we'd been consistent about trailing slash or not...

Cheers.
Simeon


[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-webarch-20030326/#format-specs


On Fri, Nov 09, 2007 at 06:42:35AM -0500, Ed Summers wrote:
> On Nov 9, 2007 3:10 AM, Leslie Carr <lac at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> > The issue raised was not one of good practice, but whether an XML
> > processor will validate the document or not. I don't believe that a
> > non-resolving namespace URI should affect validation at all.
> 
> Granted, although I think Conal was responding to Simeon's assertion
> in this thread that:
> 
>   The namespace URI (http://www.loc.gov/MARC21/slim)
>   doesn't have to resolve to anything. In fact, some would
>   argue that it is better if it doesn't.
> 
> I do not doubt that some would argue about it ... but they would be
> disagreeing with the notion of namespace documents as expressed in the
> AWWW [1].  Given that this is a SHOULD and not a MUST I agree it's
> unlikely that a reasonable validator would fail validation based on
> the absence of a namespace document -- but you could well imagine a
> warning getting triggered.
> 
> IMHO it's important for the digital library community to be aware of
> where and when it is diverging from current best practices on the
> web--and to raise issues with the appropriate bodies (w3c tag, etc) to
> change them where they can. It just makes the world-wide-web a saner
> place.
> 
> //Ed
> 
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