OpenSAML user discussion

Thanks for the reply Brent - I agree that the prefix should not matter - and 
we're working on this with the other party to try and find out what their 
tool is actually doing. They mentioned they are using some kind of optimizer 
- and I am not sure why they would want to optimize (and therefore 
potentially modify) signed XML.
This leads to another question/issue. This so called optimizer the other 
party is using is stripping off extra namespaces - and of course that causes 
the signature to fail. While I am not sure that they should be doing that - 
from my end is there a way to eliminate namespaces in certain tags ?? In the 
output below, you can see that 'xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#' 
is added to each tag - whereas it may only be necessary at the Signature tag. 
 Is there a way to remove this from the other tags ?? I know this probably 
should not be necessary - but I would like to find out if that may be an 
option.

Thanks again for the assistance.

<ds:Signature xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#";>
  <ds:SignedInfo xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#";>
    <ds:CanonicalizationMethod 
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#"; 
xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"; /> 
    <ds:SignatureMethod 
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#rsa-sha1"; 
xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"; /> 
    <ds:Reference URI="#A48b2ede20a352f13200054130000aa33" 
xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#";>
      <ds:Transforms xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#";>
        <ds:Transform 
Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#enveloped-signature"; 
xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"; /> 
        <ds:Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#"; 
xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#";>
          <ec:InclusiveNamespaces PrefixList="ds saml samlp" 
xmlns:ec="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#"; /> 
        </ds:Transform>
      </ds:Transforms>
      <ds:DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#sha1"; 
xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"; /> 
      <ds:DigestValue 
xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#";>nnawuIEMBw6O5H5nAgNYSk18W8Y=</ds:DigestValue>
 
    </ds:Reference>
  </ds:SignedInfo>
  <ds:SignatureValue 
xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#";>SiyuNjYxkaSwr3C2P29ihgzzSIN1SMh7vFZjRBYrV9p51DDv/Axz5GjnWg=</ds:SignatureValue>
 
<ds:Signature>