Re: CDR Framework: Last Call Comments

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006, Timur Mehrvarz wrote:
> >
> > I fear that CDF is encouraging, or justifying, a "split Web" situation 
> > with multiple profiles, which is directly counter to the 
> > device-independent design of the Web and of W3C's design principles.
> 
> Why would 'such devices' not interop with existing Web content?

Given a hypothetical profile W that describes the features used by 
existing Web content, any CDF profile P that is not a superset of W will, 
by definition, not include all of W. If implementations implement P, they 
will, therefore, not support all the features used by W, and by extension, 
will not interoperate with the existing Web (which uses W).


> Are plain XHTML Basic agents OK?

No, profile XHTML is bad for the same reason that profiling any semantic- 
level language is bad. The only layer that it makes sense to enable 
subsetting at is the presentation layer, and even in that case, it only 
makes sense if the underlying technology/language supports graceful 
degradation.


> Would WICD Full alone solve it?

I'm not sure what you mean by "solve it". If you mean "would having a 
single profile that is consistent across all devices prevent the creation 
of a split Web", then the answer is yes.


> Is compounding the problem?

No, compounding has been used on the Web for at least a decade and is not 
a problem.


> Are pure SVG agents interoperable enough with existing Web content, to 
> be in scope of W3C?

Pure SVG agents are not interoperable with HTML, obviously, but in so far 
as the Web needs a vector graphics language, SVG is in scope for the Web. 
This is much like the reason PNG is in scope for the Web. (However, SVG 
1.2 does, as has been pointed out many times, wander far outside this.)

HTH,
-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Tuesday, 21 February 2006 21:25:34 UTC