Fwd: XML Binding Language (XBL) 2.0 is a Candidate Recommendation (Call for Implementations)

The XBL2 Candidate was published on March 16. Many thanks to Ian  
Hickson the Editor and the other contributors listed in the  
Acknowledgments section:

  <http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/CR-xbl-20070316/>

The document includes the following Candidate exit criteria:

[[
This specification will remain at the Candidate Recommendation stage  
until two complete and interoperable implementations exist (and not  
before 1 September 2007). An implementation will only be considered  
if it is publicly downloadable or available through some other public  
point of sale mechanism, and is intended for a wide audience and  
could be used on a daily basis. To be "complete and interoperable",  
an implementation must pass every test in a comprehensive test suite  
of every normative requirement of this specification.
]]

If you intend to do some implementation work, please do share your  
plans and progress on this mail list.

Regards,

Art Barstow
---


Begin forwarded message:

> Resent-From: w3c-ac-members@w3.org
> From: "ext Ian B. Jacobs" <ij@w3.org>
> Date: March 16, 2007 11:05:46 AM EDT
> To: w3c-ac-members@w3.org
> Subject: XML Binding Language (XBL) 2.0 is a Candidate  
> Recommendation (Call 	for Implementations)
> Reply-To: w3c-ac-forum@w3.org
>
> Dear Advisory Committee Representative,
>
> I am pleased to announce that XML Binding Language (XBL) 2.0 is a
> W3C Candidate Recommendation.
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/CR-xbl-20070316/
>
> This document is published by the Web Application Formats
> Working Group:
>    http://www.w3.org/2006/appformats/
>
> The approval and publication is in response to the following
> transition request:
>    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/chairs/2007JanMar/0080
>
> There were two Formal Objections. Despite these, the Director
> supports publishing the XBL2 specification as a Candidate
> Recommendation; see the full discussion below.
>
> This specification will remain at the Candidate Recommendation
> stage until two complete and interoperable implementations exist
> (and not before 1 September 2007), as described in the document
> status section below. There is no initial implementation report.
>
> For information about any patent disclosures regarding this
> specification, see:
>    http://www.w3.org/2004/01/pp-impl/38483/status
>
> This Call for Implementations follows section 7.4.3 of the W3C
> Process Document:
>    http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr#cfi
>
> Thank you,
>
> For Tim Berners-Lee, Director,
> Chris Lilley, Interaction Domain Leader, and
> Dean Jackson, Rich Web Client Activity Activity Lead;
> Ian Jacobs, Head of W3C Communications
>
> ======================
> Disposition of Comments
> ======================
>
> The Director approves the transition of XBL2 to Candidate
> Recommendation. This decision acknowledges XBL2 does not align
> with some existing W3C technologies.  The Director sees a
> significant community behind XBL2, and believes there is value in
> continuing the development of this technology within W3C. We must
> provide the opportunity for multiple approaches to be developed
> within the Consortium, in the way that specifications such as
> CSS, XSL, XML Schema and RDF Schema were made W3C Recommendations
> despite overlaps and incompatibilities. Unfortunately this means
> that there were a number of comments made on XBL2 that were
> rejected as being out of scope even though they were consistent
> with other technologies at W3C. These comments did not go
> unnoticed. We hope that many of these disagreements can be tested
> and resolved with implementation experience gained during the
> Candidate Recommendation phase.
>
> The Formal Objections" and "rejections with strong disagreement"
> from the following disposition of comments were examined; see
> the disposition of Last Call comments for details:
>     http://www.w3.org/2007/03/doc
>
> With regard to issue 45 concerning the need for an Internet media
> type for XBL, the Director tentatively agrees that there is no
> compelling need at this time, but requests that the issue be
> revisited if a more concrete need for one becomes evident.
>
> In response to issue 86 regarding the abstract, the following
> change was made during the transition teleconference and it is
> hoped that this addresses the concern raised:
>
> http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2006/xbl2/Overview.html.diff? 
> r1=text&tr1=1.193&r2=text&tr2=1.192&f=h
>
> Regarding issue 87 and the ability for XBL to affect a document's
> intrinsic meaning, the Director requests that the XBL community
> and Doug Schepers in particular discuss eventually replacing this
> text:
>
>    "XBL cannot be used to give a document new semantics. The
>     meaning of a document is not changed by any bindings that are
>     associated with it, only its presentation and interactive
>     behavior."
>
> with this text:
>
>    "XBL cannot be used to override the meaning of a document as
>     defined by the spec of the language it is written in. Any
>     bindings that are associated with it add information about
>     its presentation and interactive behavior, and these have to
>     be consistent with the original interpretation of the
>     document."
>
> or by a normative paragraph (not a note, replacing "have to" by
> "should"):
>
>    "XBL cannot be used to override the meaning of a document as
>     defined by the spec of the language it is written in. Any
>     bindings that are associated with it add information about
>     its presentation and interactive behavior, and these should
>     be consistent with the original interpretation of the
>     document."
>
> The Director agrees with the current intent of the specification,
> however, and does not think that the paragraph should be removed;
> nor does the Director think that this change should further delay
> XBL2's progression to Candidate Recommendation.
>
> Issue 153 remains a difficult issue with two conflicting
> requirements. The Director suggests that the XBL community
> specifically request feedback from implementors and authors
> during the CR phase, and requests that it be made clear that this
> design could change pending implementation experience.
>
> Finally, for issues 9 and 163 regarding xml:id, the Director
> supports the decision to not use xml:id, because of the position
> expressed by certain browser vendors that requirements to support
> xml:id would be ignored. However, the Director requests that
> during the Candidate Recommendation phase that the XBL community
> solicit feedback from authors and implementors on whether XBL
> should rely exclusively on xml:id instead of having its own "id"
> attribute.  Further, the Director suggests that the XML
> Coordination Group should discuss xml:id with browser vendors to
> see if their reluctance can be addressed, e.g.  by more clearly
> defining the rules for the handling of elements with multiple
> declared IDs.
>
> For the full list changes since Last Call, see:
>    http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/2006/xbl2/
>
> ============================================
> Quoting from
> XML Binding Language (XBL) 2.0
> W3C Candidate Recommendation - 16 March 2007
> ============================================
>
>
> This Version:
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/CR-xbl-20070316/
> Latest Version:
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/xbl/
> Previous Versions:
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xbl-20070117/
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xbl-20060907/
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-xbl-20060619/
>     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xbl/xbl.html
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/NOTE-xbl-20010223/
> Editor:
>     Ian Hickson, Google, Inc.
>
> Abstract
>
>    The XML Binding Language (XBL) describes the ability to
>    associate elements in a document with script, event handlers,
>    CSS, and more complex content models, which can be stored in
>    another document. This can be used to re-order and wrap
>    content so that, for instance, simple HTML or XHTML markup can
>    have complex CSS styles applied without requiring that the
>    markup be polluted with multiple semantically neutral div
>    elements.
>
>    It can also be used to implement new DOM interfaces, and, in
>    conjunction with other specifications, enables arbitrary tag
>    sets to be implemented as widgets. For example, XBL could be
>    used to implement the form controls in XForms or HTML.
>
> Status of this document [ Non-boilerplate ]
>
>    This is the 16 March 2007 Candidate Recommendation of XBL
>    2.0. Implementations are encouraged. This specification will
>    remain at the Candidate Recommendation stage until two
>    complete and interoperable implementations exist (and not
>    before 1 September 2007). An implementation will only be
>    considered if it is publicly downloadable or available through
>    some other public point of sale mechanism, and is intended for
>    a wide audience and could be used on a daily basis. To be
>    "complete and interoperable", an implementation must pass
>    every test in a comprehensive test suite of every normative
>    requirement of this specification.
>
>    Publication as a Candidate Recommendation does not imply
>    endorsement by the W3C Membership. At the time of publication,
>    there was no implementation report. A future version of this
>    specification, which will include fixes based on
>    implementation feedback, will include a link to a test suite
>    and an implementation report.
>
>    If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please
>    send them to dev-tech-xbl@mozilla.org (subscribe, archives) or
>    public-appformats@w3.org (subscribe, archives). All feedback
>    is welcome. The editor guarantees that all feedback sent to
>    the above lists will receive responses before this
>    specification advances to the next stage of the W3C process.
>
>    The editor's copy of this specification is available in W3C
>    CVS. A detailed list of changes is available from the CVS
>    server.
>
>    This specification is a (non-backwards-compatible) revision of
>    Mozilla's XBL 1.0 language, originally developed at Netscape
>    in 2000, and originally implemented in the Gecko rendering
>    engine. [XBL10]
>
>    This specification was developed by the Mozilla Foundation and
>    its contributors, in conjunction with individuals from Opera
>    Software ASA, Google, Inc, and Apple Computer, Inc, to address
>    problems found in the original language and to allow for
>    implementation in a broader range of Web browsers.
>
>    This document is also based, in part, on work done in the
>    W3C's Bindings Task Force. However, no text from that
>    collaboration, other than that written by the aforementioned
>    contributors, remains in this specification. Inspiration was
>    similarly taken from other efforts, such as HTML
>    Components. [HTC]
>
>    Although they have had related histories, this specification
>    is separate from the W3C's "sXBL" drafts, and is not
>    compatible with them. (The two efforts use different
>    namespaces, for one.)
>
>    While the body of this specification was created outside the
>    W3C, the W3C Web Application Formats Working Group is now
>    guiding this specification along the W3C Recommendation track.
>
>    This document was produced by a group operating under the 5
>    February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list
>    of any patent disclosures made in connection with the
>    deliverables of the group; that page also includes
>    instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has
>    actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes
>    contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in
>    accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.  Feedback
>    requests
>
>    While feedback is welcomed on all aspects of this
>    specification, especially from implementors and authors using
>    XBL on the Web, feedback is especially requested on two
>    contentious issues.
>
>    The first concerns ID attributes. This specification defines
>    an attribute id for uniquely identifying elements in
>    XBL. There exists a specification for a global xml:id
>    attribute, which can also be used with XBL. Feedback is
>    requested from implementors and authors using XBL on the Web
>    regarding whether XBL should instead require that authors use
>    the xml:id attribute, and forbid the use of the id attribute
>    on XBL elements.
>
>    The second contentious issue regards an intentional
>    limitation: unless an element is explicitly bound to a binding
>    that provides access to its shadow tree or its bound element,
>    there is no easy way to get access to them from script running
>    outside the element's bindings. This is a feature that may be
>    introduced in a future version, but it is not clear how much
>    need there is for it.
>
>    If you have any opinions or experience regarding these issues
>    or any others, please send them to dev-tech-xbl@mozilla.org
>    (subscribe, archives) or public-appformats@w3.org (subscribe,
>    archives).
>
> -- 
> Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
> Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Saturday, 17 March 2007 13:14:31 UTC