[ietf-provreg] schemaLocation required?

[Rick Wesson <wessorh@ar.com>]

in RFC3730 it states...

2.2.  Protocol Identification

   All EPP XML instances MUST begin with an <epp> element.  This element
   identifies the start of an EPP protocol element, the namespace used
   within the protocol, and the location of the protocol schema.  The
   <epp> start element and the associated </epp> ending element MUST be
   applied to all structures sent by both clients and servers.

   Example "start" and "end" EPP elements:

   <epp xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:epp-1.0"
        xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
        xsi:schemaLocation="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:epp-1.0
        epp-1.0.xsd">
   </epp>


My question is:

   is the  xsi:schemaLocation attribute a MUST ot a MAY? the above
   language isn't expressly clear about it.

   Since the xmlns clearly defines what we are talking about and the
   xmlns:xsi and xsi:schemaLocation redundancy remove all the chars
   recovered in the shortning of element names.

These elements cost 119 chars which is more than we recovered in the
element name shorning scheme.

IMHO we should either reduce the requirement (if there is an implied
MUST) for xmlns:xsi and xsi:schemaLocation or use real terms for the
element names insted of shorting them to acronyms.

could scott clarifiy his intention with xmlns:xsi and xsi:schemaLocation?


thanks,

-rick