Official Response to ISSUE-117 from RDF Web Apps WG

Hi Jeni, Gregg,

Thank you for your public feedback on the RDFa 1.1 documents. This is an
official response from the RDF Web Apps WG to your issue before we enter
the 3rd Last Call for the RDFa 1.1 work this coming Tuesday. The Last
Call will last for 3 weeks, so there is still time for you to discuss
your concerns if we have not fully addressed them.

Your issue was tracked here:

ISSUE-117: Consider disallowing @about on <html>
https://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/track/issues/117

Explanation of Issue
--------------------

Jeni - you mentioned the following issue during your work in the HTML
Data Task Force:

"""
I've written some text warning people about potential restructuring of
invalid HTML [1] which I've reproduced below.

I haven't mentioned the issue around omitted tags for <head> and <body>,
which having thought about it I think is a HTML+RDFa bug. It is, after
all, HTML+RDFa which introduces the rules that rely on the presence of
head/body [2]:

   * In Section 7.5: Sequence, processing step 6, if no URI is provided
by a resource attribute, then first check to see if the element is the
head or body element. If it is, then act as if there is an empty @about
present, and process it according to the rule for @about.
   * In Section 7.5: Sequence, processing step 7, if no URI is provided,
then first check to see if the element is the head or body element. If
it is, then act as if there is an empty @about present, and process it
according to the rule for @about.

I think the solution is probably to add a rule that RDFa attributes such
as @about aren't permitted on the <html> element.

[1] 
http://www.w3.org/wiki/Choosing_an_HTML_Data_Format#Good_Publishing_Practice
[2] http://dev.w3.org/html5/rdfa/#additional-rdfa-processing-rules

"""

Working Group Decision
----------------------

The discussion can be found here:

http://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/meetings/2011-12-08#ISSUE__2d_117__3a__Do_not_automatically_define___40_about_on___3c_body__3e__and___3c_head__3e_

In the end, we modified the processing rules from assuming that certain
elements exist to ensuring that the parent object is set before the
processor starts processing the document. We believe that this addresses
the issue in the most elegant way possible - ensuring backwards
compatibility while addressing your concern.

RESOLVED: Modify HTML+RDFa and XHTML+RDFa to modify processing steps #5
and #6 from assuming an empty @about value to assuming that new subject
is set to the parent object.

http://www.w3.org/2010/02/rdfa/meetings/2011-12-08#resolution_2

Feedback
--------

Since this is an official Working Group response to your issue, we would
appreciate it if you responded to this e-mail and let us know if the
decision made by the group is acceptable to you as soon as possible.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: PaySwarm vs. OpenTransact Shootout
http://manu.sporny.org/2011/web-payments-comparison/

Received on Saturday, 28 January 2012 18:38:35 UTC