Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

XPointer/XLink and annotations

Author:Ken MacLeod
Posted:10/1/1999; 7:52:08 AM
Topic:XPointer/XLink and annotations
Msg #:11668
Prev/Next:11667 / 11669

One common thread in the ThirdVoice (I prefer the acronym 3V over TeleVision) and CritLink discussion is the technical part about how, to provide any annotation service at all, the services have to modify the actual copy of the original work at some point during it's transfer or viewing.

The W3C's XML Linking Working Group is working on standards that will allow one to refer to a point or a range within another document without modifying or requiring anchors in the linked-to document. The current drafts of these standards are XPointer and XLink. When browsers implement XPointer and XLink (Mozilla and MS IE will likely be the first, they are very XML aware), annotation services (as well as other uses) will be able to provide their services without modifying the the actual bits of the original work.

Note: this only addresses a technical point in this discussion, it does not attempt to address social or legal issues.

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