[Nml-wg] Deviating from GFD.84

[Freek Dijkstra]

Hello Richard, I'm writing to you as OGF Area Director,
cc authors of GFD.84,

The NML working group is defining a UML schema for network topology
descriptions with a syntax in both XML and RDF/OWL.

We like to use the same URI for both the XML and RDF namespaces, but
found that XML and RDF use namespaces in a different way. To make the
NML namespace valid for both RDF and XML, we like to deviate from
GFD.84, which defines the syntax of OGF namespaces.

In particular, we are thinking of ending the namespace with a hash (#)
or slash (/), as required by RDF.

Secondly, we are considering using "base" for the part name of the base
schema, instead of repeating the project name.

So instead of using
   http://schemas.ogf.org/nml/2012/10/nml
   http://schemas.ogf.org/nml/2012/10/ethernet

We like to use either:
   http://schemas.ogf.org/nml/2012/10/base#
   http://schemas.ogf.org/nml/2012/10/ethernet#

or
   http://schemas.ogf.org/nml/2012/10/base/
   http://schemas.ogf.org/nml/2012/10/ethernet/

Do you have any objections to these namespaces, and do you have any
advise on the choice for hash or slash variant?


Note that it is not possible to publish both the XML and RDF/OWL schema
at the specified URI, but we plan to put a HTML document at the
specified URI with (RDDL and human readable) pointers to both schemata.


FYI, these are the most important differences between XML and RDF
namespaces:

- Namespaces in XML are used for scoping, in XML the element name
  and namespace are separate parts in identifying a single thing.
- Namespaces in RDF are used like prefixing, the element name and
  namespace are concatenated to form a single identifying URI.
- It is *best practice* to not end XML namespaces in "/" or "#",
  but it is perfectly valid to do so, and many standards do.
- It is *best practice* to end an RDF namespace in "#", but it is
  perfectly valid to use something else, some standards also use "/".

Regards,
Freek Dijkstra