Re: Proposal to Adopt HTML5

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007, Benjamin Chait wrote:
> 
> 1. What does WHATWG think of HTMLWG's proposal to adopt WHATWG's spec?

The WHATWG is over 700 people, and they each have their own opinions. The 
people who proposed that the HTML WG adopt the WHATWG spec are from three 
companies whose employees founded the WHATWG, though, so presumably 
they're in favour...


> 2. I know some people want only to work with one WG or the other, but 
> this is completely counterproductive to have discussions over two 
> mailing lists. Yes, you have mentioned you would serve as editor to 
> maintain equivalence, but that doesn't prevent the two WGs from 
> diverging...

Actually, it does. The way the WHATWG works, there are never "group 
decisions". The draft iterates towards an optimal state by the editor 
changing the draft in response to people's feedback.


> how can we maintain one document from two separate groups without 
> basically arguing the same points over two mailing lists?

There are far more sources of input than just these two mailing lists. 
There's also over a dozen IRC channels that I monitor, six or so different 
bug databases, blogs, blog comments, forums, lunch discussions, direct 
e-mail, implementation feedback, author feedback, research, etc. We don't 
have to argue the points to a conclusion; if I am asked to be editor, I 
will continue as I have at the WHATWG and take input from all sources I 
can into account when writing the spec. With the thousands of people 
involved -- or even with just the three hundred in this group -- you'll 
never make everyone happy and have everyone agree anyway.

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

Received on Wednesday, 11 April 2007 22:32:49 UTC