[Bug 9883] New: Notes on and request for references for Section 1.4: History

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=9883

           Summary: Notes on and request for references for Section 1.4:
                    History
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
               URL: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/introduction.html#history
                    -1
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: minor
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: glsimpso@indiana.edu
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html@w3.org


Ian, these comments are meant in the spirit of the "Reviewing HTML5" page on
the WHATWG wiki: http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/Reviewing_HTML5.  My main foci
were clarity and external citations.

1. It would be very helpful to have citations to relevant documents in this
section. Those reading a "history" section would most likely want to follow
links to source documents to evaluate them for themselves. At the very least,
please add references to the mentioned specs: HTML 3, 3.2, 4, XML, XHTML,
XHTML2, the DOM specs, and XForms. Those would, of course, be non-normative.

2A. The following sentence is a bit awkward and confusing: "At this early
stage, while the draft was already publicly available, and input was already
being solicited from all sources, the specification was only under Opera
Software's copyright." It is unclear to me what this actually means. Does it
essentially mean that Opera led the effort to develop a new specification,
soliciting input from the public and making the draft publicly available.  

If so, I would say: "Opera led the effort to develop a new specification,
soliciting input from the public and making the draft publicly available. At
this stage, Opera owned the copyright on the specification."

2B. It would be helpful in the aforementioned paragraph to indicate a date.
Clearly, it's between 2004-2006 (inclusive).

3. "The copyright was subsequently amended to be jointly owned by all three
vendors, and to allow reuse of the specification." How does one "amend"
copyright? Was this in terms of amending an application to a country's
copyright office? Was copyright reassigned to WHATWG? Was the copyright notice
merely changed to state the three vendors?

4. Putting this section in the active voice would benefit its overall clarity. 
Take for example, the following phrase: "The idea that HTML's evolution should
be reopened was tested at a W3C workshop in 2004." Who did the "testing"? If
part of the goal of this section is to tell a joint W3C/WHATWG history of
HTML5, this goal would be aided by not hiding agency by using the passive
voice.

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Received on Tuesday, 8 June 2010 18:44:07 UTC