Re: XML 1.0 5th edition

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Thanks for your feedback, and your support for the change as such.

With regard to your version number point, the XML Core WG considered
this for a long time before going the route we did.  We were strongly
influenced by the evident reluctance of the community to support XML
1.1, despite near-universal approval of its substance.  There's no
doubt making these changes is significant, but strictly speaking also
allowed by our own rules: the Process Document sets certain
requirements for a spec. to be published as a Proposed Edited
Recommendation, particularly as regards the kinds of changes it
involves and evidence of interoperability, and this change does in our
opinion (and of the W3C Director, in that he approved the publication
of the PER on this basis) satisfy those requirements.

In particular, the changes in XML 1.0 5th Edition fall into class 3
- From section 7.6.2 Classes of Changes to a Recommendation [1], as they
affect conformance without introducing new features.

As regards the Process requirement for implementation experience, the
XML Core WG understands that implementing this relaxation in XML 1.1
parsers has been technically straightforward: it is a matter of
replacing a rather large "permitted" table with a much smaller
"forbidden" table.  The interoperability of those parsers provided
preliminary necessary evidence that interoperable implementation of
the changes proposed in XML 1.0 5th edition will likewise be
straightforward.  More recent experience, detailed in the
implementation report [2], confirms this expectation: four parsers,
- From both vendor and open-source efforts, implement the changes and
interoperate with respect to the tests which have been added to the
XML Test Suite [3] to cover the new edition.

We have brought this forward because we believe the benefits outweigh
the costs, based on a number of efforts to sample the likely response.

Please let us know if you are satisfied with this response.

ht

[1] http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr#correction-classes
[2] http://www.w3.org/XML/2008/01/xml10-5e-implementation.html
[3] http://www.w3.org/XML/Test/#LatestNews
- -- 
       Henry S. Thompson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
                         Half-time member of W3C Team
      10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
                Fax: (44) 131 651-1426, e-mail: ht@inf.ed.ac.uk
                       URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
[mail really from me _always_ has this .sig -- mail without it is forged spam]
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Received on Friday, 3 October 2008 09:11:49 UTC