Published DTDs

At 11:06 AM 9/29/2000 , Dave  J Woolley wrote:
>Other problems you will get at AA are compliance with published
>DTDs, as most commercial sites do not comply## and even those
>that want to may find it too difficult to eliminate proprietory
>elements and attributes. 

Actually this requirement is VERY problematic.  There is no
definition of a "published DTD" and logically speaking, anyone
could construct a "published DTD" by modifying the XHTML DTD
(or using XHTML 1.1 modules) or HTML DTD to add their own
custom tags and then reference this as a custom DTD.

>$$ I'm assuming that the set of DTDs that is used by 
>validator.w3.org represents the published HTML DTDs.

Except the validator (a) has never been granted an official
exalted position such as this, and (b) will accept custom DTDs,
_as it should_.

Note:  Custom DTDs are a feature, not a bug.  The "published
DTD" rule is very non-XMLish and will not work for the future!

-- 
Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                    http://kynn.com/
Director of Accessibility, Edapta               http://www.edapta.com/
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet   http://www.idyllmtn.com/
AWARE Center Director                      http://www.awarecenter.org/
Accessibility Roundtable Web Broadcast           http://kynn.com/+on24
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