This document dedicated to namespaces as used in XML technologies. It is intended to provide a non technical introduction to the concept of namespace and a relatively complete overview of the specific characteristics of XML namespaces.
This document should not be construed as a stand-in for an eventual XML developers guide. A document that would include NENA recommended best-practices for XML artifact development such as schemas and transforms. This document does however contribute guidelines that may encourage the future development of such a guide.
Many of the more recent NENA standards involve the creation of XML artifacts such as schemas1 (schemas) and WSDL documents. In most cases, these artifacts are considered prescriptive parts of the standards.
Most of these schemas introduce specific XML namespaces for the markup vocabulary they define. XML namespaces play a key role in schema modularity and reuse, both being important requirements in todays information sharing and exchange standards.
Nonetheless, some aspects of XML namespaces can be difficult to grasp. This document attempts to clarify most of those aspects.