Re: Title of the HTML5 document

On May 25, 2009, at 4:45 AM, Sam Ruby wrote:

> Anne van Kesteren wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 May 2009 13:09:10 +0200, Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>
>> wrote:
>>> Another way to address this is to describe this document in terms
>>> that nobody can question.  "Unform Browser Behavior" is one such
>>> way. Perhaps there are better ways of addressing this, but I doubt
>>> there are any that are more concise.
>> You say "nobody", but Maciej and Ian are questioning that title. (And
>> I question it too given that HTML5 covers much more than browser
>> behavior.)
>
> I was unclear.  It is my believe that the document, once completed,  
> will
> describe a behavior that is uniform across a number of popular  
> browsers,
> and that few, if any, will doubt that.

Does anyone doubt that the document is in fact about "A Vocabulary and  
Associated APIs"?

> Clearly there isn't yet consensus on that as a title, or on removing  
> the contradictions with other specifications.

If you think there are contradictions that are problematic, should  
they not be addressed as technical issues in their own right, rather  
than playing games around with the title?

Note that neither Roy nor Larry suggested that "contradictions with  
other specifications" was a reason to change the title. Rather, they  
do not like the things the spec specifies or the manner in which it  
does so. The argument that the title should be changed because there  
are contradictions with other specifications was, I believe, first  
presented in your emails just now. At first glance, it does not seem  
to me that changing the title would make such contradictions any more  
or less of a problem, so I'm not sure why you are making this argument.

> Hopefully over the upcoming months we can make progress on one or  
> both fronts.

We did in fact have a group decision that the title should be "HTML5".  
And there were no Formal Objections. Not even Roy's after-the-fact  
objection was a Formal Objection. Thus, as far as I can tell, we have  
satisfied the W3C criteria for consensus on the title. I'm not sure  
why you think it is helpful as chair to reopen an issue where we  
already had consensus. Would you like to personally lodge a Formal  
Objection to the title, based on the spec contradicting other  
specifications? Or perhaps it is the subtitle where you think we lack  
consensus, in which case the controversy would easily be resolved by  
removing it.

If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were just looking for a  
pressure point to push for other changes to the spec.

(I'll note that I have no idea which contradictions you are concerned  
with, perhaps you can point me to the relevant issues in the issue  
tracker or bugzilla.)

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Monday, 25 May 2009 12:09:30 UTC