Automatic transformation of XML namespaces/Rationale
The Web is a mixture of standard and nonstandard resources. There were huge rumors that the Web would be enhanced by XML technology into something radically new, based on semantic rather than markup. In large these hopes failed. The Web continues to be dominated by semi-markup rather than purely semantic file formats, including HTML and XHTML.
For a real radical change for the better, we need to develop a mean to automatically transform between XML namespaces.
This specification specifies of how to do these transformations.
The list of particular rationale points of this specification:
- mixed namespace documents without the need to specify a special relationship between every pair of namespaces
- semantic markup on the Web, with anybody (if he is a programmer) being able to create his own markup extensions; this may be a transitional (by converting to XHTML markup) stage of getting rid of old HTML and replacing it with semantic markup; new markup may be especially usefully created by search engine owners
- cross-browser markup extensions
- creating “composite” markup languages
- no need to download transformers and so easy upgrades
- possibility to create a browser which internally understands only XSL FO (and/or SVG)
This is based on RDF because RDF is effective on describing relationships between entities (and XML namespace are entities).
This standard may be implemented as:
- a command line utility;
- a part of an interactive Web browser;
- as an HTTP proxy server.