Re: uh-oh!

[William Loughborough]
> http://www.operasoftware.com/people/howcome/1999/foch.html is a note
> written by Hakom Lie who just moved his hat from W3C to Opera.  In
> the Abstract he mentions "Although not intended to be used on the
> Web, it's unlikely that it can be prevented. XFO is therefore a
> threat to accessibility, device-independence and the dream of a
> semantic Web"

Please read the archives of
<URL:http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list/> before rehashing the
entire thread here, though.

In his paper, Håkon brings up valid concerns about a border condition
in which semantic XML is transformed on the server side to
presentational formatting objects (FOs), and only the FOs are
delivered to the client.

First of all, this is not the intended use model of XSL; it is
possible, but it is not possible to design technology that is both
powerful and abuse-proof.

Secondly, this really is (or will be) a minority case; it would only
work in browsers that implemented the new XSL spec, any of which would
also provide support for client-side transformation.  Therefore, the
abuse would only happen in cases where publishers were intentionally
trying to hide semantics from the user, in which case there is little
that can be done to stop them.

Finally, there is at least one proposal (mine, at
<URL:http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/crism/xsl/>) for adding
default aural characteristics to primarily-visual FOs to alleviate the
cases where an explicit aural stylesheet is not provided.

-Chris
-- 
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Received on Tuesday, 27 April 1999 01:13:04 UTC