- From: Karl Dubost <karl@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:29:59 +0900
- To: HTMLWG WG <public-html@w3.org>
Hi HTML WG, I'm forwarding this, because one of the serialization of HTML 5 is XML. Début du message réexpédié : > Réenvoyé-De : chairs@w3.org > De : "Grosso, Paul" <pgrosso@ptc.com> > Date : 2007-10-30 00:20:11 HNJ > À : <chairs@w3.org> > Objet : XML 1.0 and XML 1.1 > Message-Id: <CF83BAA719FD2C439D25CBB1C9D1D302093A1AB1@HQ- > MAIL4.ptcnet.ptc.com> > Archived-At: <http://www.w3.org/mid/ > CF83BAA719FD2C439D25CBB1C9D1D302093A1AB1@HQ-MAIL4.ptcnet.ptc.com> > > > Chairs, > > Please feel free to forward this email to your WGs. (Public W3C > mailing lists are fine--this is not intended to be member-only.) > > paul > > ------ > > Since XML 1.1 became a W3C Recommendation in August 2006, > there has been a substantial uptake of it as a peer of XML 1.0 > in new and ongoing W3C work. This is appropriate, as XML 1.1 > was explicitly not designed to replace XML 1.0, but to supplement > it for the benefit of various groups against which XML 1.0 had > unjustly, but unintentionally, discriminated. > > However, there are very few XML 1.1 documents in the wild. > The XML Core WG believes this to be the result of a vicious cycle, > in which widely distributed XML parsers do not support 1.1 because > the parser authors believe that few document authors will use it. > This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as those who would > benefit from XML 1.1 are rightfully concerned that documents > written in it will not be widely acceptable. > > After considering various other ideas, the XML Core WG wants > to suggest the possibility of changing XML 1.0 to relax the > restrictions on element and attribute names thereby providing > in XML 1.0 the major end user benefit currently achievable > only by using XML 1.1. > > To quote the XML 1.1 Recommendation: > > The W3C's XML 1.0 Recommendation was first issued in 1998, > and despite the issuance of many errata culminating in a > Third Edition of 2004, has remained (by intention) unchanged > with respect to what is well-formed XML and what is not. > This stability has been extremely useful for interoperability. > However, the Unicode Standard on which XML 1.0 relies for > character specifications has not remained static, evolving from > version 2.0 to version 4.0 and beyond. Characters not present > in Unicode 2.0 may already be used in XML 1.0 character data. > However, they are not allowed in XML names such as element type > names, attribute names, enumerated attribute values, processing > instruction targets, and so on. In addition, some characters > that should have been permitted in XML names were not, due to > oversights and inconsistencies in Unicode 2.0. > > The overall philosophy of names has changed since XML 1.0. > Whereas XML 1.0 provided a rigid definition of names, wherein > everything that was not permitted was forbidden, XML 1.1 names are > designed so that everything that is not forbidden (for a specific > reason) is permitted. Since Unicode will continue to grow past > version 4.0, further changes to XML can be avoided by allowing > almost any character, including those not yet assigned, in names. > > Since then, Unicode has expanded further to reach 5.0, and it is > nowhere near complete with respect to the world's minority languages > and writing systems. If XML 1.0 relaxed the restrictions on element > and attribute names, those who preferred to retain the Appendix B > constraints in their documents would be free to do so, but those > who wish to use element and attribute names in languages normally > written in any of the Ethiopic, Cherokee, Canadian Syllabics, Khmer, > Mongolian, Yi, Philippine, New Tai Lue, Buginese, Syloti Nagri, > N'Ko, and Tifinagh scripts will be able to do so, as will users > of minority languages whose scripts appeared in Unicode 2.0 but > were lacking essential letters for writing those languages. > > Of course, older parsers will still reject such documents, but > there will be no need for a strict XML 1.0/1.1 dichotomy. The > XML Core WG has heard evidence tending to indicate that implementing > such a relaxation would be technically straightforward in essentially > all XML parsers: it is a matter of replacing a rather large > "permitted" table with a much smaller "forbidden" table. > > The XML Core WG assumes that if such an erratum were to be passed > into XML 1.0, the XML 1.1 Recommendation would eventually be > deprecated > by the W3C. > > Comments on all aspects of this possibility are earnestly solicited; > please send them to www-xml-blueberry-comments@w3.org (publicly > archived). > > Paul Grosso > for the XML Core WG > > -- Karl Dubost - W3C http://www.w3.org/QA/ Be Strict To Be Cool
Received on Tuesday, 30 October 2007 03:30:26 UTC