Re: ISSUE-53: mediatypereg - suggest closing on 2009-09-03

On Mon, 31 Aug 2009, Julian Reschke wrote:
> Ian Hickson wrote:
> > On Sun, 30 Aug 2009, Mark Baker wrote:
> > > On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 2:08 PM, Ian Hickson<ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
> > > > > Well, in that case HTML5 is unsuitable as the *only* 
> > > > > specification referenced by the text/html media type 
> > > > > registration.
> > > >
> > > > I disagree.
> > >
> > > Julian is correct.  The registration for text/html needs to include 
> > > sufficient information to allow legacy documents served with that 
> > > type to retain their meaning.
> > 
> > The HTML5 spec does have sufficient information to allow legacy 
> > documents served with that type to be processed in a fashion that 
> > retains their meaning, as far as I am aware. If I have missed 
> > something, please let me know.
> 
> You keep saying that, but pointing things out again and again doesn't 
> appear to work.
> 
> "Retaining the meaning" and "to be processed in a fashion that retains 
> their meaning" are not the same thing.

I disagree that they are not the same thing for obsolete features.


> For the former, the specification must define what the element/attribute 
> means. Usually, that means more than describing what a UA needs to do 
> with it.

It is pointless to provide semantics of elements (or other features) that 
are obsolete other than the semantics that form the element's (or the 
feature's) normative user-agent conformance criteria, since the only 
effect of such semantics is in deciding whether the element (or feature) 
is being used correctly, and obsolete elements (and features) can never be 
used correctly, since they are obsolete and must never be used at all.

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

Received on Monday, 31 August 2009 10:22:37 UTC