References are broken if both Version number and PubDate aren't exact matches

[jwise-mfg]

VDMA's new companion specification for Powertrain (spec, nodeset) depends on the IRDI Dictionary Namespace (http://opcfoundation.org/UA/Dictionary/IRDI)

• The Powertrain Nodeset references http://opcfoundation.org/UA/Dictionary/IRDI (Version: 1.0.0, PubDate: 7/11/2024)
• But the published Nodeset in the OPC CloudLib has a PubDate of 2020-02-04.

As a result, the Powertrain Nodeset cannot be imported because the reference is not the same due to mis-matched PubDates.

We either need to relax the reference constraint so only the version number needs to match, or the Powertrain Nodeset needs to be corrected to reference the correct PubDate for the published IRDI nodeset.

[opcfoundation-org]

The IRDI Namespace is different from every other Namespace since the specification that defines the Namespace does not define any Nodes. Instead it defines rules for creating Nodes from externally defined identifiers like IRDIs.

What this means is every specification that references IRDI identifiers produces a new NodeSet that only contains the IRDI nodes that were created/referenced by the associated CS NodeSet.

This means there is never a single IRDI NodeSet file and the publication date/version cannot be used to select the "latest".

Instead tools must be prepared to merge multiple IRDI NodeSets into a single NodeSet when they encounter references to multiple IRDI NodeSet files.

The IsNamespaceSubset property should be set to True which makes it clear that merging is needed instead of "pick one".

There is an action to develop a whitepaper:
https://mantis.opcfoundation.org/view.php?id=9998