Re: Treatment of RDFa in TAG Finding on Self-describing Web and feed back on RDFa in XHTML1.1

Hi Dean,

> I request that having a doctype for RDFa in XHTML1.1 documents become a 
> MUST (compulsory), and not optional. As most people send their XHTML 
> documents as text/html [1], a doctype will be needed to trigger 
> standards mode, plus the lack of a doctype creates a conflict with the 
> XHTML variant of HTML5.

Thanks for your feedback regarding RDFa in XHTML1.1.

At this point, because we have already considered this exact issue
thoroughly, and because there is no new evidence, we do not believe that
changing the specification is warranted. I want to stress that, though
your comment came after the deadline, we discussed it fully during our
call based entirely on the merits [1].

- existing issue, discussion and resolution:

http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/106

In addition, a related issue and its discussion can be found at
http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues/28


- ways in which we address this issue in the current specification:

We explain in the Document Conformance section [2] the required use of
the html element with the proper xhtml namespace reference. We also
recommend using @version on the html element.

We explain in the informative appendix that, if one wishes to validate
using the existing validator, then one needs to include the DOCTYPE [3].
There should be no confusion regarding validation, though we note that
validation techniques may well evolve (XML schema-based validation is an
active area of work at W3C.)


- HTML5:

HTML5's XML serialization does not require DOCTYPE. This is, in our
opinion, evidence that DOCTYPE need not be mandated, as other languages
are already choosing to omit it.


Thanks again for taking the time to send us a detailed comment. Please
let us know if this resolution is acceptable to you.


-Ben
Chair, RDFa Task Force.


[1] http://www.w3.org/2008/10/09-rdfa-minutes.html#item06
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-rdfa-syntax-20080620/#docconf
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-rdfa-syntax-20080620/#a_deployment

Received on Friday, 10 October 2008 16:02:54 UTC