During the XML Schema teleconference of 9 February (draft minutes at [1]) a decision was made to add to Schema Structures a table of associations between namespace names used in the Recommendation and conventional prefixes such as xsi:, xs:, etc.  We noted during our discussion that the resulting global documentation of the associations might facilitate more widespread use of the prefixes elsewhere in the Recommendation, perhaps allowing for removal of some explicit references to the full namespace names.

I was given an action to open a bugzilla report for tracking this, and this report is the result.   There seemed to be at least informal agreement among those on the call that this issue is purely editorial, and thus needs no attention at all until after last call.

(FWIW:  while preparing this note I did notice that the current structures public WD already says:  The XML representation of schema components uses a vocabulary identified by the namespace name http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema. For brevity, the text and examples in this specification use the prefix xs: to stand for this namespace; in practice, any prefix can be used.  So, it seems to me that we've always been in a position to use the prefixes elsewhere in the Rec, but in any case this report suggests that we take another pass to be sure we're happy with how namespace references are set out.)

Noah

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-xml-schema-ig/2007Feb/0050.html