> your comments) I have a burning question --
>
> You mentioned that we don't have to pick such a prefix -- then please
> clarify my inquiry regarding the unique prefixes for RDF and RDF Schema
> that -- if I understand correctly -- are very much required.
>
> Is it an "RDF thang?"
>From http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-rdf-syntax/#transporting
[....]
The syntax descriptions below use the Extended Backus-Naur Form notation
as defined in section 6, Notation, of [XML] to
describe the essential RDF syntax elements.
The EBNF here is condensed for human readability; in particular, the
italicized "rdf" is used to represent a variable namespace name rather
than the more precise BNF notation "'<' NSname ':...'" and
the requirement that the property and type names in end-tags exactly match
the names in the corresponding start-tags is implied
by the XML rules.
[...]
RDF serialization syntax takes the form:
[1] RDF ::= '<rdf:RDF>' expression* '</rdf:RDF>'
[end of excerpt]
('rdf' in the above is italicised in the original HTML.)
At first glance this looks as if 'rdf' is hardcoded as the
namespace prefix, but I think this is just an artifact of the
convenience shorthand being adopted.
The phrase "'rdf' is used to represent a
variable namespace name" makes it pretty clear that other
prefixes could be used instead.
Dan