notes on text/html in ED-xhtmlmime-20080315

Hi Shane, XHTML2 WG,

I had a look at the latest editor's draft for the XHTML Media Types  
Note, and had a few questions I hope the group's public list is  
appropriate for.

http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/2008/ED-xhtmlmime-20080315/

in “text/html” (section 3.1) I am glad to see a mention of HTML  
compatibility guidelines. <joke>I think you should move appendices  
around so that the well known name “appendix C” remains valid.

I wonder, however, how we can make these compatibility guidelines  
clearer, or rather, how to make their importance clearer. As you know,  
right now for XHTML 1.0 the compatibility guidelines are an  
*informative* appendix refered to quite normatively in the *normative*  
section 5.1. As a result I have seen a lot of bickering about whether  
the guidelines MUST be followed, especially in the context of a  
checking tool.

As such I'm not sure having the guidelines in a note (non REC-track)  
will help clarify the situation. In other words, I'd be very happy if  
the WG could help here, perhaps by pushing the NOTE towards REC status?

I am also confused by the table in 3.5 (Summary). I suppose it hasn't  
been updated since the section 3.1 was changed to allow text/html as a  
MAY for all of the XHTML family? It's not really mentioning the  
difference between XHTML when using foreign elements, or not.

I suppose the table should now be as the sample file, attached. You  
will see I took the liberty to replace HTML4 by "HTML 4.01 and  
earlier" and mention the HTML5 draft, although I understand that there  
are discussions to make text/html also a MAY for the XML  
serialization. I am not. however, sure about text/xml and application/ 
xml… As I said before, coordination between the two groups is an  
absolute necessity, I hope you will coordinate on the question of  
media types.

Thank you.

-- 
olivier