RE: Are Level 0 features included in Level 1 Spec?

Jo,

To me, having led development of a spec similar to the Level 0 spec (the WAC Core Specification), the reason to continue work on this spec and the test/compliance program it drives is that it does not yet achieve the stated intent from the wiki as "a de facto spec, aiming to describe the current state of the Mobile Web Platform. It is based off of market shares of the default browsers on deployed smartphone and tablet handsets. For the purpose of simplicity, this was roughly identified as the intersection in feature set of the Android 2.2 Froyo and iOS5 default browsers but with standard syntax.").

The set of features in the spec are not universally supported by Android (even up to ICS) and iOS5. And I would challenge the limitation of the "current state" to Android and iOS. Even within Android, in various cases the spec goes well beyond what is reliably supported across the range of ICS-based devices (and it gets even spottier as you move back to Froyo).  I think in order to create an actual "defacto baseline" - which would actually be useful - we need more focus on Level 0 and validation in a reasonably broad set of launched devices.

So in order to actually produce a yardstick measuring devices against the current state, we support the completion of this work and the test assets that will back it. This will help both in setting the starting point more accurately for Level 1, and in catching those devices that for whatever reason fail in some aspect or other against Level 0 (which will still occur, as e.g. in Android not *everything* comes free with Webkit, as any OEM will tell you).

Thanks,
Bryan Sullivan

From: Jo Rabin [mailto:jo@linguafranca.org]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 11:07 PM
To: Core Mobile
Subject: Re: Are Level 0 features included in Level 1 Spec?

Thanks Bryan

That is a very helpful offer. The group needs to decide what the point of such a specification might be and what relationship it might have with a testing component. I know that there is some trepidation in the group about returning to a "meta" level of unactionable discussion on this topic. So it's clear to me that the original purpose won't wash and that if there is to be such a document then it needs to have a restated purpose. It might benefit from a name change to make that clear. I think that we would need to be focused and time bounded in the extreme in producing any such document. I'll say more on this in my responses to my ACTION-2 and ACTION-4.

I have a planned chairs call today with Robin, we'll discuss taking on AT&T's kind offer.

Meanwhile my apologies for there being no meeting summary as yet - I'm finding that summarising the 2 day meeting is taking more than 2 days. "I would have written less if I had had more time" comes to mind.

Thanks
Jo
On 18 Jul 2012, at 23:43, SULLIVAN, BRYAN L wrote:


Jo,

AT&T would like to support the definition of Level 0 and step up as editor of the spec. We believe that this baseline is very important and needs to be supported in the overall CoreMob program including test assets. Our developer program team has the resources to support this effort, and is looking forward to getting more directly involved in W3C work in support of developers and mobile web user agent compliance.

Given that we provide the needed editing support, I would like to get confirmation that there is support in general for continuing this work in CoreMob.

Thanks,
Bryan Sullivan

From: Jo Rabin [mailto:jo@linguafranca.org]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 9:16 AM
To: Tobie Langel
Cc: Core Mobile
Subject: Re: Are Level 0 features included in Level 1 Spec?

On 18 Jul 2012, at 14:15, Tobie Langel wrote:



Hi Sun,

On 7/10/12 5:16 PM, "Sun, Dan" <Dan.Sun@VerizonWireless.com<mailto:Dan.Sun@VerizonWireless.com>> wrote:



Hi Tobie/Robin/Jo/All,

Level 0 was touched a little bit in the first F2F but no clear direction.

Think there's a clear direction. L0 is shelved. Unshelving it will require
providing a new spec editor for it and getting group consensus to do so.
So far, no editor has volunteered.

I think the F2F meeting determined that there is still interest in level 0 - at least that is the way I have written the meeting summary and the way that my response to my ACTION-2 [1]  reads. I completely hear your point that without an editor stepping forward it will be difficult to progress.

I'm sorry that these have not appeared sooner - they are coming to this list very shortly.

Thanks
Jo

[1] http://www.w3.org/community/coremob/track/actions/2