xinclude and pathnames

[Tim Arnold]

I'm using ElementTree to access some xml configuration files, and using the 
module's xinclude capability. I've got lines like this in the parent xml 
file (which lives in the same directory as the included xml file):
<xi:include href="/dept/app/doc/current/en/xml/asdf/asdf_syntaxterms.xml"/>

When I started the project it was Unix-only; this worked fine. Now I have 
users who want to use the system on Windows and of course that directory 
path doesn't exist on Windows, but it is available on the network using a 
name like \\ladida\current\en\xml\asdf\asdf_syntaxterms.xml

if relative paths worked, I could imagine
<xi:include href="asdf_syntaxterms.xml" /> would work.
Also,the file can be read via an http server.

My question: is there a way to make xinclude work with relative paths or 
perhaps urls?
Any ideas welcome--to me it looks like I'll have to restructure this part of 
the system since I've basically programmed myself into a corner.

thanks,
--Tim Arnold