Re: TAG ACTION-407 -- text/html media type and legacy

Maciej Stachowiak, Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:54:11 -0700:
> 
> <commenting with HTML WG chair hat off>
> 
> I understand the desire to satisfy the MIME registration 
> compatibility requirements. However, it looks to me like this 
> proposed text makes HTML 2.0, HTML 3.2, and HTML 4.0 conforming for 
> the text/html MIME type, whereas RFC2854 only allowed HTM 4.01. Are 
> these additions intentional?

Henry's proposal most definitely categorizes HTML2, HTML32, HTML4 and 
HTML401 documents as only *previously* 
conforming:

]]
>>  This specification defines rules for processing not only
>>  conforming [but] also non-conforming documents, including those
>>  which conform to the early specifications listed above.
[[

Docs may still [aspire to] conform to those "early specifications 
listed above", but that does not mean that they conform to the current 
specification.

Btw, RFC2854 uses a lot of place to tell that HTML consumers must be 
prepared for all kinds of HTML - not only the officially sanctioned 
syntax and not only the *previously* officially sanctioned syntax. And 
the above quote form the text that Henry forwarded reflects what 
RFC2854 had to say about what was *then* currently non-official HTML. 

The new situation, today, is that it has now become specced, inside the 
current HTML specification itself, how HTML consumers should react to 
all these variants of non-conforming HTML.

> I don't understand the purpose of 
> expanding conformance relative to the previous registration to 
> include these long-obsolete specifications.

I guess I don't understand this. I see no "expanding conformance" to 
anything.

> Also: RFC2854 allows a profile of XHTML 1.0 (presumably Appendix C) 
> to be sent as text/html,  whereas the proposed text below does not.
> Is the omission intentional?

Well, "allows"? Do you think it should allow XHTML1, without at the 
same time not also "allowing" HTMl401? I agree that the text that Henry 
forwarded does not say anything about XHTML1, though.  It should - in 
the end - probably say that even to send text/html with a XHTML1 
DOCTYPE is now not anymore the current specification. But it should 
probably also say something about other variants of XHTML1 and whether 
they can be sent as text/html or not.

PS: FWIW, if XHTML1 had been specced after HTML5 had been specced, then 
appendix C could have decided to allow a wider set of XHTML-isms.
-- 
Leif Halvard Silli

Received on Thursday, 22 April 2010 18:45:31 UTC