Twitter bootstrap documentation talks about three mixins to generate grid systems:
.container-fixed();
#grid > .core();
#grid > .fluid();
In navbar.less of bootstrap you will find the following.
.navbar-fixed-top .container,
.navbar-fixed-bottom .container {
#grid > .core > .span(@gridColumns);
}
In cases where you want to keep "span3" etc out of your html you could very well do something similar to:
header {
#grid > .core .span(12)
}
article.right {
#grid > .core .span(6)
}
aside.right {
#grid > .core .span(6)
}
footer {
#grid > .core .span(12)
}
(12) and (6) are the number of columns you'd like your header element to span. This is of course replacing