Path forward on Microdata

The chairs will discuss the full path forward on Microdata soon and  
let the WG know about the process and clarifications. In the meantime,  
I recommend that Manu and Tab review and revise their Change Proposals  
to take account of each other's rationales and the mailing list  
discussion. I think the mailing list discussion is not really  
presenting new arguments any more, just mostly repeating the same  
arguments.

I strongly encourage anyone with an interest in this issue to help  
Manu and/or Tab respectively.

Here are some arguments that I personally think are especially worth  
addressing in Rationale:

- Manu's argument that "Either RDFa or Microdata (or both) may fail in  
the marketplace" and consequently "If either RDFa or Microdata fail in  
the marketplace in the long-term, it would be advisable to allow  
either (or both) to fail without having a negative impact on the HTML5  
spec proper." -- not addressed in Tab's Change Proposal.
- Tab's argument that "All good specs which integrate with HTML5  
should, ideally, be a part of HTML5" (clarified to mean things that  
are part of the HTML language as such) and his points about why  
Microdata is good -- not addressed in Manu's Change Proposal
- Tab's rebuttals to some of the claims Manu made about RDFa (e.g.  
argument about whether Microdata is "not mature" relative to other  
parts of HTML5) -- might be worth providing further counterpoints in  
Manu's Change Proposal.
- Toby's argument that Microdata may be reusable in other specs (e.g.  
in SVG) and therefore is useful as a separate spec: <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Dec/0192.html 
 >. It would be good to include this in the "Split Microdata"  
rationale and address it in the "Keep Microdata" rationale.
- Any arguments raised on the mailing list which seem novel and  
interesting should be incorporated and/or responded to in the  
rationales.

It would be good to get this done soon, although at this point I do  
not have a specific deadline to announce.

Regards,
Maciej

Received on Monday, 7 December 2009 16:57:42 UTC