Web Forms 2 - version clarification, please?

aloha, all!

it is my understanding that the basis of the HTML WG's approach to forms
is contained in Web Forms 2.0 as it was submitted to the W3C in 2006:

http://www.w3.org/TR/web-forms-2/

what i find problemmatic are two issues:

first, is the following statement which appears in the "Status of This 
Document" section of the 2006-08-21 draft of Web Forms 2.0, which is 
housed in the W3C's TR directory:

<q cite="http://www.w3.org/TR/web-forms-2/#status">
Status of this document

This section describes the status of this document at the time of its 
publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of 
current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical 
report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at 
http://www.w3.org/TR/.

If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to 
whatwg@whatwg.org (subscribe, archives) and public-appformats@w3.org 
(subscribe, archives). All feedback is welcome.

Implementors should be aware that this specification is not stable. 
Implementors who are not taking part in the discussions are likely to 
find the specification changing out from under them in incompatible 
ways. Vendors interested in implementing this specification before it 
eventually reaches the Candidate Recommendation stage should join the 
aforementioned mailing lists and take part in the discussions. 

Snapshots of the editor's copy of this specification are occasionally 
submitted to W3C CVS. The latest editor's draft is available on the 
WHATWG site, and in the WHATWG Subversion repository. Detailed change 
history can be obtained from the Subversion repository as well.

This specification was originally created, and is still now being 
developed, outside the W3C. The W3C Web Application Formats Working Group
is responsible for this specification's progress along the W3C 
Recommendation track. This document consists of the initial step along 
that process, the first public working draft.

Web Forms 2.0 is not the only approach to making declarative formats for 
applications and user interfaces that the Web Application Formats Working 
Group is examining. The working group expects to publish a requirements 
document for an alternative solution soon.
</q>

second, in light of that text, which is the version of WF2 which is 
supposed to form the basis of our review?  the only other draft of WF2 
in w3c web space is that which was pushed to CVS in 12 october 2006:

http://dev.w3.org/html5/web-forms-2/Overview.html

as far as i can tell, the 21 august 2006 and the 12 october 2006 drafts 
are the ONLY web forms 2.0 drafts in W3C space -- are we to assume, 
therefore, that the 12 october 2006 is the latest draft submitted to the 
W3C, and hence the actual basis of our task force?

as with the HTML5 draft itself, i would STRONGLY suggest that the 
verbiage:

quote
If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to 
whatwg@whatwg.org (subscribe, archives) and public-appformats@w3.org 
(subscribe, archives). All feedback is welcome.
unquote

be changed to point comments regarding the WF2 document to either the 
joint forms task force list, the public-appformats list, or the HTML 
WG; moreover,

quote:
Snapshots of the editor's copy of this specification are occasionally 
submitted to W3C CVS. The latest editor's draft is available on the 
WHATWG site, and in the WHATWG Subversion repository. Detailed change 
history can be obtained from the Subversion repository as well.

This specification was originally created, and is still now being 
developed, outside the W3C. The W3C Web Application Formats Working 
Group is responsible for this specification's progress along the W3C 
Recommendation track. This document consists of the initial step along 
that process, the first public working draft.
unquote

what precisely does the phrase "occasionally submitted to the W3C CVS" 
actually mean?  the latest editor's draft of a W3C submission should 
not be housed outside of W3C space, nor should it continued to be 
developed outside of W3C once submitted to the W3C, without it being 
formally resubmitted, since the changes have been taking place outside
of W3C's ken, without even the "occasional" push of a draft to W3C CVS,
i find it imcomprehensible that we should use as our basis of 
conversation a draft which has continued to develop and receive feedback
in a forum outside the W3C -- this isn't a mere process issue, but an 
essential point -- how can we collaborate on forms for HTML5 if one of 
the foundational documents keeps shifting under our feet in a forum 
outside of that to which it was submitted?

this is the first important point that must be answered before any actual
work on comparing drafts begins...  has all of the work i've performed 
reviewing the 21 august 2006 version been in vain?  what precisely is the
W3C process for submissions which may materially change in an outside 
forum?  we can only review what we have available to review, and right 
now, that boils down to either the:

21 august 2006 initial submission:
http://www.w3.org/TR/web-forms-2

or the 12 october 2006 CVS version:
http://dev.w3.org/html5/web-forms-2/Overview.html

thank you for clarifying these issues,
gregory.

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Received on Sunday, 2 September 2007 18:45:39 UTC