Re: HTML5-warnings - request to publish as next heartbeat WD

On Tue, 11 Aug 2009, Manu Sporny wrote:
> 
> We cannot, however, willfully break other specifications without there
> being blowback. For example, here's what I'm asserting happened with
> @summary:
> 
> 1. Gather some data and report the @summary issue to WAI/PFWG.
> 2. WAI/PFWG does not respond satisfactorily, for whatever reason.
> 3. Break the WAI/PFWG guidance by authoring normative language into the
>    HTML5 spec.
> 4. Disaster.

We didn't break the WAI/PFWG guidance at all. There are no normative WAI 
documents that refer to summary="", and the only note that refers to 
summary explicitly states that only HTML4 and XHTML1 are in scope.


> > Having said that, are there are any violations in the HTML5 spec that 
> > aren't already called out in the spec? I thought I had put text about 
> > each occurance.
> 
> The way they are called out in the current spec is the problem. I'm 
> asserting that what the current language says is:
> 
> "We have chosen to willfully violate another specification."
> 
> What I am asserting is that the language should be changed to express 
> the following notion:
> 
> "We have chosen to willfully violate another specification, and thus 
> this section is unstable because a clean solution to the issue has yet 
> to be found."

These sections aren't unstable unless you think that there is any chance 
that HTML5 is going to specify something that implementations won't 
implement.


> My intention was to mark every section that violates another 
> specification with a warning noting that the section is undergoing 
> discussion.

Then those warnings are going to be wrong. There's no way you're ever 
going to convince a major Web browser vendor to treat ISO-8859-1 as 
anything but Windows-1252, for example.


> >> I also note that we have less than 3 months to LC -- a time when a 
> >> great number of people start raising issues and concerns related to 
> >> the specification.
> > 
> > There's a reason the timetable expects us to be in LC until 2012. :-)
> 
> What do you mean by "expects us to be in LC"? My understanding of the LC 
> process is that we can't enter LC until most of these larger issues are 
> addressed... which may take much more than 3 months.

I expect we'll be at zero technical issues by October, at which point the 
announcement of last call will result in a ton of more feedback which will 
likely take until 2012 to handle.

The issues you have listed, and the issues on the HTML issue tracker, are, 
with few exceptions, not technical issues. It's possible that as Maciej 
said, the HTMLWG will be quagmired in discussing non-issues for many 
months, delaying the W3C's publication of an LC draft.


> > Personally I have to say that I don't see much point in adding warnings to 
> > the spec. I support your right to have the working group publish your 
> > edits, but I don't think it's an especially good idea. I don't really see 
> > what the point is. 
> 
> I explained this in more detail when responding to Maciej:
> 
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0550.html

I still don't see what the point is. It just looks like you're trying to 
stir up controvery so that you can gain support for dropping the microdata 
section and replacing it with RDFa.


> We are not effectively communicating the larger issues with HTML5 to the 
> public.

I really don't think that the issues you are trying to communicate will do 
anything to aid the public, and I think it will do everything to slow down 
our progress even further, by bringing people who are naturally 
argumentative into discussions that are already high on rhetoric and low 
on data. It will just discredit the HTMLWG even further.


> Even reviewers that read the HTML5 specification are going to find it 
> difficult to understand the high-level issues with the specification. 
> What's stable, what's unstable?

We have had stability markers for exactly that purpose for years.

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

Received on Tuesday, 11 August 2009 20:24:39 UTC