Re: Proposal to Adopt HTML5

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007, Bruce Boughton wrote:
> >
> > If the HTML WG adopts the draft and me as editor, then the specs would 
> > evolve in lockstep, literally generated from the same source document.
> 
> This sounds sensible.  However, what would happen if the HTML WG were to 
> change portions significantly from the WHATWG spec and the WHATWG did 
> not agree?  How can you have the two specs generated from the same 
> document if there is significant (hypothetical) disagreement?

Unless the HTML WG changed something in a way that was fundamentally 
incompatible with the WHATWG's goals (which are currently the same as the 
HTML WG's goals, so this would require a change of the HTML WG's goals, 
or a failure to follow our own design principles), the HTML WG decision 
would just be taken.


> Also, if there are two working groups working on one spec, then the 
> separation of them causes a huge artificial communications barrier.

Not really. The way that the WHATWG has been working isn't the way that 
most people imagine a working group to work. As an editor, I take input 
for every source I can -- bug databases, blogs, forums, mailing lists, 
research, lunch conversations, implementation feedback, personal e-mail, 
you name it -- and use all of that to influence the spec. The WHATWG 
mailing list is but one of many sources; the creation of the HTML working 
group here at the W3C merely adds another source of input, as far as I'm 
concerned. (Assuming that I become the editor, that is. Which I'd be happy 
to do, but that's up to the group to decide.)

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

Received on Wednesday, 11 April 2007 22:27:00 UTC