Re: Scope of W3C recommendations; core issue for polyglot & DRM

On 1/29/13 8:40 AM, John Kemp wrote:
> On 01/29/2013 08:03 AM, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>> FWIW -- We've already been through the hell I am trying to prevent
>> others from embarking upon. We have more than a 100+ transformers for a
>> variety of XML based data sources (including XHTML, XHTML, HTML5) and I
>> know that what we've been through isn't something others will embark 
>> upon.
>>
>> My fundamental concern: most (X)HTML5 is published without appropriate
>> hints to processors. Thus, you have to sniff on the content.
>>
>> If you haven't attempted to extract a Microdata, RDFa, Microformats data
>> island from an (X)HTML5 document you won't be aware of these problems
>> out in the field. In addition, beyond schema.org, most online retailers
>> (as a consequence of Schema.org) are producing the kind of problematic
>> (X)HTML5 that I describe.
>>
>
> It sounds like you are exactly aware of the problem then. People try 
> to do something they want to do, and they all do it in different ways. 
> A consumer is unable to know, reliably, what to do with this data, 
> since the problem you mention is completely undocumented without a 
> "polyglot specification".
>
> Is your advice "don't do this"? If so, what would you have them do 
> instead? If your advice is "do it this way", where is the 
> specification that shows this way?
>
> JohnK
>
>
>
In an ideal world, it would simply be a case of (X)HTML5 enforcing the 
DOCTYPE and xml namespace requirements. In the real world, we already 
know -- as exemplified by schema.org -- that it won't happen.

I believe XHTML5 and HTML5 should have distinct content-types, which 
they are. Thus, if anyone seeks to publish polyglot (X)HTML5 they MUST 
adhere to the specs re. DOCTYPE and xml related namespace declarations.

-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
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