IANA considerations for PIDF

A couple of comments on the PIDF document.  I have most of the IANA 
considerations text ready, pending a resolution of my second point below.

First point:  checking the URN registration procedures, I think the 
cpim-pidf namespace URN should be changed to 
<urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:cpim-pidf>  (see 
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-mealling-iana-xmlns-registry-03.txt).

Second:  trawling through the PIDF spec to draft the IANA considerations, I 
notice that a <value> attribute 'type=' has been introduced, which appears 
to require a new registry to be created.  I've not been following the 
debates too closely, so I don't know why this was introduced.

Do we really need this?  Creating a new IANA registry is not to be 
undertaken lightly, I think.

The description of <value> is rather vague about the exact nature of the 
type= attribute.  It also seems to me that this approach is ignoring the 
more natural extensibility mechanisms offered by XML.

My alternative suggestion is to replace the <value> element with <open/> or 
<closed/>, thus:

The <status> element MUST contain one of the two sub-elements:  <open/> or 
<closed/>.

Additional elements may be included in a <status> element, but their 
meaning is not defined by this specification.  Applications encountering 
unrecognized elements within a <value> may ignore them, unless they carry a 
mustUnderstand="YES" attribute (see section 4.2.3).

Then, this example from section 4.3.1:

        <status>
          <value>open</value>
          <value
            type="urn:ietf:params:cpim-presence:status-type:im">busy</value>
          <value
            type="urn:example-com:cpim-status-type:location"
            schema="http://www.example.com/impp/location.dtd">home</value>
        </status>

would be replaced by something like this:

        <status>
          <open/>
          <im:busy xmlns:im="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:cpim-im" />
          <loc:home xmlns:loc="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:cpim-location"
                    schema="http://www.example.com/impp/location.dtd" />
        </status>

(I don't know what purpose the schema serves here, so I've just copied it.)

#g

-------------------
Graham Klyne
<[email protected]>



  [reminder: [email protected] for non-technical discussions, please]