Re: A proposal for establishing an RDFa IG

Ben Adida wrote:
> Sam Ruby wrote:
>   
>> Before I agree, let me give my perspective.  People are going to use
>> RDFa in HTML, and as such I feel that such usage should be documented,
>> test suites set up, and libraries made to interoperate, yadda, yadda,
>> yadda.  I don't happen to agree that that work as largely done.
>>     
>
> I agree that this should be done. It's not done yet, but it's well on
> its way (and the work on RDFa in XHTML1.1 is of course a huge help in this.)
>
>   
>> Talking specifically about a "RDFa in HTML" draft, I don't see how
>> anybody can take a position that microdata is in scope for the HTML WG
>> and RDFa in HTML is not.
>>     
>
> Well, Henri did just that in his blog post, and Ian clearly thinks that.
>  Therein lies the problem. We want to work on RDFa and address real use
> cases without being dependent on Ian. Sure, joint work can happen to
> enable RDFa in HTML5, but since HTML5 is willing to ignore what Google,
> Yahoo, CC, the UK government, and many others are doing, then *some*
> group needs to take on that work. That's the point of the RDFa IG.
>
> -Ben
>
>
>   
I hope you all don't mind me butting into this discussion.

I doubt that the microdata section will live to see final publication, 
but I don't see whether it will or won't will impact on whether RDFa is 
incorporated into HTML 5.

Just giving my two cents worth, but I can't help thinking a separate 
group focused on providing a RDFa in HTML 5 document would ultimately be 
the better course anyway.  The problem is that the conformance language 
of HTML 5 is such that even if you work through some of the technical 
issues, using RDFa within HTML 5 (either served as XML or not) will not 
be "conformant".

So perhaps what's really needed is a three prong approach: work on a 
separate spec/doc about RDFa in HTML 5, work to get the microdata 
section removed from HTML 5 (should happen regardless of RDFa), and work 
to eliminate the "not defined here therefore it's non-conformant" 
language from the HTML 5 specification.


Shelley