Valid HTML 4.01? need explanation!

From: Herbert Poetzl <herbert@13thfloor.at> Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 22:08:41 -0400 (EDT) To: www-validator@w3.org Message-ID: <20020902020831.GB10457@www.13thfloor.at> · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.2.0+W3C-0.50 : Monday, 6 April 2009 13:05:40 GMT

the following html code puzzles me, because
I am unable to explain the behaviour of the
validation service at w3c.

if you have any good explanations, please
let me know.

best,
Herbert

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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

<HTML>
  <HEAD>
    <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
    <TITLE>Good HTML</TITLE>
  </HEAD>
  <BODY>
    <TABLE width="100%">
      <TR>
        <TD>
          <FORM method="post" action="/someurl.html">

            <P> <!-- required for validation -->

	      <INPUT type="hidden" name="user" value="hans">
              <INPUT type="submit" value="Send IT">
	      <TABLE>
	        <TR>
		  <TD>
		    xxx
		  </TD>
		</TR>
	      </TABLE>

	    </P> <!-- not allowed for validation -->

          </FORM>
    	</TD>
      </TR>
    </TABLE>
  </BODY>
</HTML>