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This document details the responses (or lack of response) made to
issues in XML Base raised by the XML Linking
Working Group, other W3C Working Groups, and the public (via the
www-xml-linking-comments mailing list).
This document of the W3C's XML Linking Working Group describes the disposition of comments as of November 20 2000 on the XML Base Candidate Recommendation. It may be updated, replaced or rendered obsolete by other W3C documents at any time.
For background on this work, please see the XML Activity Statement.
This document describes the disposition of comments in relation to the XML Base Candidate Recommendation. The comments have been categorized: technical errors in the current specification, requests from other Working Groups and Member Companies, and editorial comments (consisting of spelling and grammatical errors). Each issue is described by the name and contact information of the commentator, a description of the issue, and either the resolution or the reason that the issue was not resolved.
Source: James Clark, http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-xml-linking-ig/2000Aug/0007.html (members only). Also see linking issues list [XB12] (members only).
James interprets the text differently than we had intended, with the effect that XML Base was incompatible with XSLT's base URI handling. Our intention is that top-level processing instructions in an external entity can not be affected by XML Base.
Resolution: (members only) Clarification accepted to fix editorial error as per http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-xml-linking-ig/2000Sep/0005.html (members only).
Source: James Clark, http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-xml-linking-ig/2000Aug/0007.html (members only). Also see linking issues list [XB11] (members only).
James states: "Allowing the value of xml:base to be relative seems like an unnecessary complication to me. In HTML 4.0, a base URI specified by the BASE element is required to be absolute (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#edef-BASE). The Content-Base MIME header defined in RFC 2110 also requires an absolute URI."
Resolution: (members only) Declined. Neither HTML nor Content-Base allow for scoped bases, and thus aren't equivalent to xml:base in this respect. Rejecting relative URIs when there is an obvious meaning and a convenience argument may prove confusing to users. It would be a bit odd for a specification defining how relative URIs are used not to take advantage of the features it describes. It is not a significant enough problem to warrant a change during CR.
Source: Jonathan Marsh, http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-xml-linking-ig/2000Oct/0068.html (members only). Also see linking issues list [XB10] (members only).
XML Base does not specify the base for URI References appearing in comments. Do we want to do anything about this? (pro) For consistency, we should describe the base for URI References everywhere they could appear in an XML document, and this includes comments. (con) The content of a comment is not interpretable as anything but text, and cannot be recognized as a URI Reference in any kind of a standard way. XML Base therefore does not apply. Mentioning it might encourage people to put processable information inside comments which is abusive.
Resolution: (members only) Declined. No clarifying note is necessary as this issue didn't arise from the public.