Ten Years Later - XML 1.0 Fifth Edition?

It does take a bit of hairsplitting to conclude that 1.0.5 is legitimately
an erratum rather than a new version. But what's a better way forward? I
see the XML 1.0.5 proposal as treading a very narrow path with an abyss on
each side: one side is the status quo, which arbitrarily limits XML names
(and id attribute values, I learned today from Richard Ishida); on the other
side is the failed experiment of revising XML with a new version, and the
reality that the current edition of XML 1.0 insists that the versioninfo
value be '1.0'. (Thus, just making in an actual revision 'XML 1.0.5" rather
than "XML 1.0 5th edition" creates another nasty set of problems).


Actually you could call the specification XML 1.0.5, and still use
version="1.0" in the XML declaration. We would at least then have a proper
handle on which specification we are referring to or claiming conformance
to. If we want documents to be able to assert that they require an XML 1.0.5
parser we could introduce an optional processing instruction <?xml-edition
version="1.0.5"?>. An XML 1.0 parser would not reject this processing
instruction, but would of course reject the document if it actually uses the
extended character set.

Michael Kay