Re: Friction and cross pollination

On Oct 17, 2011, at 23:37 , Larry Masinter wrote:
>> we'll simply shut down once the report is published
> 
> Yes, task forces should produce a report and shut down. The report should identify follow-on work that needs to be done, whether in working groups or community groups.
> 
> However, in the case where there are ongoing activities in W3C developing incompatible material (XML and HTML, RDFa and microdata, or, say, WebVTT and TTML) insufficient regard to cross-specification compatibility and interoperability, I don't think sending the remaining work to a "community group" is appropriate.

I don't think that the suggestion expressed (certainly not by me) was to send further work about XML/HTML alignment to a community group. I simply suggested that there are some interesting (to some) topics that are peripheral to core XML/HTML alignment and that these can be best processed by interested parties outside of the TF.

For what it's worth, my perception of the XML/HTML situation is that we are not in a case of "incompatible material" being developed with "insufficient regard to cross-specification compatibility and interoperability". We have two ecosystems that have bridges between them, and both are doing a great job at cross-specification compatibility and interoperability. Yes, technically, we could merge them. But just because we could does not mean that we should, or that the value in doing so would exceed the pain involved in merging rather than bridging where necessary.

>   I'm glad to hear that "most involved parties" are happy with the current direction wrt canvas/SVG/CSS, but I haven't seen any documents about the situation other than a talk at last year's TPAC in Lyon. Is there a report or analysis I'm missing?

I am not convinced that we need to go meta on every single W3C activity. Canvas and SVG are both doing fine, and each has its uses. Knowing when to use which is a matter for best practices, which I'm sure someone will write up at some point (if it hasn't happened already — I know Doug Schepers had excellent notes about this). SVG and CSS are cooperating in a joint TF that seems to be making very good progress.

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon

Received on Monday, 17 October 2011 21:54:56 UTC