Don Park brings up a really good point that should be discussed. It's applicable not only to namespaces, but to ALL open standards. As we've seen from the W3C and IETF, things aren't always what they seem to be. ICANN has CERTAINLY proven that supposed standards groups can be as slime-bally as Microsoft or AOL.
So what are we to do?
Well Owen Davis and the Identity Commons has the idea that proper 'governance' is needed. They claim that because the Liberty Alliance is "controlled by enterprise" - that we - by definition - can't trust them. That has led to lots of talking about talking and coming up with budgets in the six figures to pay for setting up an organization that will 'govern' digital identity standards.
Needless to say they haven't come up with any budgets yet for paying for software to CREATE a digital identity standard. So this all seems pretty absurd to me. Steve Hock (Dee Hock's son) thinks so too. So you won't be seeing me hanging with those homies anytime soon. But I do wish them luck. And if they ever come up with some CODE - they should defintely give me a call.
Meanwhile what lesson can we learn from this debacle? Isn't this an issue that needs to be dealt with in regards to (n)Echo-Atom? Who's in charge? What happens with disputes? How is the final spec ascertained? Blah blah blah - the issues keep swirling around Sam Ruby and Mark Pilgrim. But are they the bosses? Are we just replacing Dave Winer with somebody else?
One thing I've learned about committtees is that it's the surest way to get NOTHING accomplished. Dave Winer had one thing right. It takes an asshole to get things done. Not that Dave's an asshole mind you, it's just that democracy doesn't work in groups. Ask Clay Shirky about that.
That's why all great companies have strong leadership at the top. Not only can they (the (n)Echo-Atom folks) not come up with a name (which isn't really their fault - just a sign of the times) but there is also this underlying 'consensus building' process that's going on - which seems kind of disfunctional to me.
Well anyway - here's Don's post on XML namespaces. But it's relevant to lots of other areas.....
XML Namespace Ownership.
During a discussion with Mark Pilgrim over some Atom extensibility issues, I ran into some questions which are likely to be controversial:
Who owns a XML namespace?
A XML namespace URI is supposed to be just an opaque string that is unique enough to identify a namespace. It is not a place so the question of ownership is different the question of link ownership. I suppose one could apply trademark or copyright laws to XML Namespace URIs.
If one can exercise legal control over XML namespaces, what are the legal implications of standard organizations like W3C owning key XML namespaces? I am not a lawyer, no can I think like one so I'll punt this question. But we are likely to see clauses appearing in specs related to XML namespaces.
Should XML namespaces be Open or Closed?
An open XML namespace allows third-parties to add new names according to a strict naming design pattern. Are there use-cases where there is a need for XML namespaces to be open? What about nested XML processor plugin frameworks that uses XML Namespace URI?
There is also the question of rogue tags being carried as a hidden beacon of sort across the Net and into Intranet. If unknown tags are ignored by default everywhere, what are the security and legal implications? If my web service logs all invokations and someone slips in copyrighted or illegal information into a SOAP call, am I liable? There is a whole new type of cross-scripting issues in web services.
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Don Park's Daily Habit]
I gotta go check it out - later.
