According to a W3C insider, the W3C is paralyzed by a
problem with the Namespaces recommendation so difficult that
work on XML
specifications cannot proceed without its resolution.
The first public hint of the problem came during this
week
when the
DOM
Level
2 Candidate Recommendation was issued without a
closing date
set:
A coordination issue has arisen,
which necessitates an extended
Candidate Recommendation phase. It
will end when the coordination issue
is resolved
More information came as Mike Champion indicated
that the issue affected not only the DOM, but other W3C
specs as well. Lauren Wood, chair of the DOM Working Group,
pointed
out that the issue was indeed related to namespaces.
According to the anonymous
poster, the problem at hand is that of relative URIs in
namespaces and how to treat them. The Namespaces
Recommendation says two namespaces are the same if they are
matching strings, but also that they are URI references.
These two ideas come into conflict when a relative URL is
used, which has different meaning dependent on context.
There are several possible problems to the solution,
however none of
them are without conflict with existing specifications or
software. The W3C is having enormous trouble deciding what
to
do.
Normally in such situations Tim Berners-Lee, the W3C's
Director,
would act as a final authority, but in this case he has
decided to
"make his input just like any other W3C member". This act,
which may
be due to political pressures and the extreme positions
held on this
issue by members of the XML Plenary, has caused the entire
process to
stall.
According to their message, the anonymous insider has
revealed the
difficulty so the XML-DEV community can apply pressure
"wherever
they can (over a beer or whatever) to get the mess cleaned
up and
the Working Drafts moved on."
Whatever the resolution, it is clear that the W3C needs
to act
quickly. The pressure applied by vendors in the marketing
of such
proposals as SOAP means that a slow-acting W3C would
become
irrelevant, and fail to achieve its goal of technical
consensus on
Web technologies.
Related stories: