Re: Notes on the process

Jon Bosak wrote:

> The case we're addressing with the recent decision about error
> handling has to do specifically with the competitive landscape in Web
> browsers.  There is nothing in the new language that prevents Web
> browsers from handling error recovery any way they like.  What they
> can't do is to behave in a way that doesn't conform to the spec and
> *advertise themselves* as XML browsers.  In other words, it gives the
> browser vendors a stick with which to beat each other up if they start
> playing games with the XML specification.

In that case I withdraw any issues I raised; they are certainly irrelevant to
the browser vendors' positioning concerns regarding XML compliance.

> I confess to being a little disappointed with the inability of some
> people in this group to understand that this is not a technical issue
> but rather a unique opportunity to change our industry's competitive
> landscape.  The major browser vendors are saying, in effect, that they
> would rather compete on the basis of conformance than on the basis of
> nonconformance.  Whether they sincerely mean this or not (I have no
> more confidence in this than anyone else does) will become apparent in
> the fullness of time, but it would have been irresponsible in the
> highest degree not to have seized our only opportunity to find out.

Thanks for the explanation; the discussions certainly sounded like a technical
conversations to me. Also philosophical, which never hurts.

By the way, you and Tim refer to major browser vendors. Has anyone from
Netscape been seated on the ERB yet? How are they making their concerns known
to the W3C-XML bodies?

-Todd.

Received on Friday, 9 May 1997 14:02:23 UTC