What is the meaning of xs:mixed without elements?

Question

I got the following XSD bit from a customer. It is part of a legacy schema that spans over dozens of files.

Answer 1

The two types might be equivalent on the surface, but their extensibility is different. Using a simple content type of xs:string allows refinement of the type by constraining the string for example with a regular expression, while using a mixed complex content type with no elements allows refinement by adding elements to the model.