In a recent post to XML-dev, Tim Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium made explicit the claim that namespaces should map to schemas.

Although the original posting referred only to RDF, Tim Berners-Lee then said in a subsequent and much more direct posting that: I think that the essential thing for me is the availability of the definitive schema (the resource identified by the namespace URI) for making definitive pronouncements by the language publisher in the form of any of the above.

The later messages, unlike the original posting, included 'in no official capacity' and may not represent the official views of the W3C. However, given the immense power the director wields within the W3C process, this may signal an end to the discussion regarding the relationship between schemas and namespaces.