Question: is $ref the official recommendation for property objects?

[Scott T Nieman]

GeoJSON seems to leave the 'properties' property (don't get me going) wide open to the implementer.

          "properties": {
            "oneOf": [
              {
                "type": "null"
              },
              {
                "type": "object"
              }
            ]

There have been discussions in agricultural use cases that we can potential use the $ref approach to refer to an externally defined schema for the 'properties' representation for more complex objects, such as products applied to a field where the substance composition of the product (array) may be helpful include an array of registration identifiers (PRMA in Canada, EPA in the USA, Chemical Abstract Service, etc.).

Some still argue that the world is flat, and that a simple name-value pair is best.

Thoughts?