Re: PSA: publishing new WD of URL spec

On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com> wrote:
> On Sep 11, 2014, at 9:19 AM, Marcos Caceres wrote:
>> On September 11, 2014 at 11:58:58 AM, Julian Reschke (julian.reschke@greenbytes.de) wrote:
>>>> In which case the WHATWG version wouldn't be "canonical" anymore anyway.
>>
>> "The proof is in the pudding", as they say. I read a recent blog post that indicated that the IETF failed wrt maintaining the URL specs [1].
>
> Er, you mean you misread that post.  The IETF has been maintaining a standard
> on uniform resource identifiers.  The WHATWG wants to define a standard for
> how to parse references within HTML.  Both could coexist, if it were not for
> the egos that insist on calling references a URL.  "" is not a URL.
>
Can you explain this in simple terms?  Are you suggesting WHATWG
should call it something else?  If so, specifically what?



> What has been completely lost in this territorial anxiety debate is
> that Anne's URL spec doesn't actually define URLs, and is a truly hideous
> example of NIH syndrome.  I find it a complete farce that some folks are
> even considering importing that into the W3C process, whether by copy or
> by reference; almost as ridiculous as watching the WHATWG's deliberate
> political campaign to capture the TAG's membership.

Is this really what you think?  I have enormous respect for you and
for your work, and I have to say that it actually pains me to think
that you've looked at this through conspiracy colored lenses which
ignore important facts which would dispute this in favor of the more
likely explanation that we both ran and successfully elected candidate
who had a message that resonated and have a history of getting things
done and are respected by members of both organizations in good faith
that we could do good things with the W3C and the Web at large.  The
recent "reform" efforts have run and successfully elected 8 members,
and the director has appointed another 2.  Of these, there are 2 who
are vocally in favor of addressing what seem to them (and others) as
important issues, and one left early and the other one is no longer a
sitting member.  In other words, the big "WHATWG" presence consisted
of half of the folks elected in a single election, who both served
their time, and came and went without incident.  Domenic has also
worked with WHATWG and found/pointed out some good there.  However,
I'd like to speculate and point out that _something_ of that probably
stems from the fact that he wasn't a W3C member yet was able to
navigate that end of things successfully as a developer and actually
accomplish things.  As someone instrumental in recruiting him (he was
nominated by my organization) as a candidate to run, I can tell you
that WHATWG played exactly 0 role in the consideration of that effort.
That withstanding:  Remaining members have no particular tie to
WHATWG, but -do- have ties to W3C and seem like they have called for
nothing more than rational discourse and cool heads to discuss real
issues and reforms.  Like most of us, they don't shut doors, we just
cooperate where possible and try to make it better.


> Was this the whole point of that political campaign?  To make it easier
> for the TAG to impose awful specs by reference to "living standards"
> which are, in truth, not implemented by anyone?  Power corrupts, doesn't it.
> I can see why you are now so upset about the W3C trying to push those
> same specs through a consensus process.
>

Examining the idea of living standards, licensing and practical
concerns was a stated position of many candidates - and they got
elected.

There is really no way to say this without it sounding potentially
condescending or insulting to someone, but I feel like someone needs
to say it.  Since I have little to lose, except the friendship of some
very good folks, I guess it's just as well it's me:  It does very
little good IMO to hurl emotional statements or accusations back and
forth.  Can we (all of us, this isn't directed toward any particular
party) possibly acknowledge, if we take a deep breath and leave any
concept of ego, justice or our own particular Shangri-La outcome at
the door - that neither side is presenting a position that is wholly
without merit here when you really take the time to consider it?  Can
we see if there is a rational recourse that addresses as many concerns
as possible and lets us resolve some good, if not perfect things for
the sake of the Web?  What we have today is inconvenient and
regrettable, but it seems fundamentally worse to escalate emotions and
further divisions to the point of mutual annihilation of trust to many
on the outside looking in.

PS, I <3 you all ;-)

> ....Roy
>
>



-- 
Brian Kardell :: @briankardell :: hitchjs.com

Received on Friday, 12 September 2014 02:05:53 UTC