Re: [HTMLWG] CfC: Adopt "Plan 2014" and make some specific related decisions

On 10/22/12 7:27 AM, Sam Ruby wrote:
> To turn this discussion more constructive, the problem that needs to be
> solved is the misconception that exists that the HTML5 specification is
> all that needs to be implemented

I think that what Jonas and Henri are concerned about is a parallel 
problem, which is the misconception that if something is in a document 
found on w3c.org then it's "a spec" and needs to be implemented, tested 
for in homegrown conformance tests like html5test.com, and so forth. 
This has been a problem even for technologies that have been formally 
dropped by the W3C (e.g. WebSQL).

> A concrete example of this can be found in the
> first paragraph of the following comment:
>
>    https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=14689#c18

My own perception, for what that's worth, is that the misconception 
Jonas and Henri are concerned about is widespread amongst web developers 
and even amongst browser developers and browser evangelists.  By and 
large, web developers have no idea what the W3C process is about and 
don't draw much of a distinction between the various process stages a 
document goes through, unfortunately.  :(

The misperception evidenced in the above cited comment is obviously a 
problem if it's happening on a wide scale, but I have to admit this is 
the only instance of it that I've seen....

> Perhaps "promote" (which is indeed in the plan 2014) and "branding"
> (which is not) are too strong of words.  But if we could add some text
> to the HTML 5.n series of specifications (perhaps in the status
> section?) to make this specifications relationship to other
> specifications clearer, then this would be goodness.

I agree with this last goal, for sure.

-Boris

Received on Monday, 22 October 2012 14:11:03 UTC