RDDL 2.0

Jonathan Borden has announced a version 2.0 of RDDL.

I am (or have been?) a great believer and promoter of RDDL, but I am disapointed by this version. I think that RDDL 1.0 was better than RDDL 2.0 and have sent a mail to explain why.

If you look at this example (from examplotron):

<rddl:resource
  id="xsd-schema"
  xlink:arcrole="http://www.rddl.org/purposes#schema-validation"
  xlink:role="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
  xlink:title="W3C XMLSchema for examplotron"
  xlink:href="examplotron.xsd"
  xlink:type="simple"xlink:show="none"
  xlink:embed="none">
<div class="resource">
<h4>W3C XML Schema for examplotron</h4>
<p>This W3C XML Schema (Proposed Recommendation, 16 March 2001)
<a href="examplotron.xsd">schema</a> describes the examplotron
vocabulary and can be imported in W3C XML Schema to validate examplotron schemas.</p>
</div>
</rddl:resource>

A link is expressed between the full description of the schema (including the whole <div/> element) and the schema.

With the new proposal you would end up with something such as:

<div class="resource">
<h4>W3C XML Schema for examplotron</h4>
<p>This W3C XML Schema (Proposed Recommendation, 16 March 2001)
<a href="examplotron.xsd"
   rddl:nature="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
   rddl:purpose="http://www.rddl.org/purposes#schema-validation">schema</a>
describes the examplotron
vocabulary and can be imported in W3C XML Schema to validate examplotron schemas.</p>
</div>

And the link is now between the schema and the much less significant piece of text « schema ».

And there is no way to keep the expressive power of RDDL 1.0 because the content model of the XHTML <a/> element doesn’t allow it!

The argument beyond this modification is that the syntax is simpler. That might be, but I think that it’s just not working. Yet another example of a vocabulary that should be as simple as possible but not simpler!

The other thing I don’t like is that they have used the same namespace which means that all the existing RDDL document implicitely point to the description of a vocabulary which is very different from their content.