Re: Publish HTML5, RDFa heartbeats and Microdata, 2D Context and H:TML as FPWDs

Sam,

> I do a far amount of work at the Apache Software Foundation, and if that 
> foundation was run this way, there would be no Tomcat.
> 
> More relevant to a W3C context, if such a policy were followed, there 
> would not need to be both an XSLT and CSS.
As already pointed out by Julian, XSL uses a different approach, mostly complementary, can (and often does) work together with CSS and the overlap is small. (I'm not an expert on Tomcat but I believe it's tailored to fit well into a Java ecosystem, which is not a primary concern for Apache HTTP Server - a generic server compiled for Linux and Windows platforms. Besides, software is not standards.) Microdata attempts to address the same problem space in the same way (a tiny set of markup attributes) and is in fact, as noticed on this list, a subset of RDFa 1.1, only gratuituously incompatible because of different attribute names.

> Here I need to cry foul.  Please cease attributing motivation to people 
> that you may disagree with and then condemning them based on motives 
> that you have imputed upon them.
No condemnation of any people, I really appreciate their insights and good work they have done so far (e.g. Ian's contributions to the CSS WG).
For a few years I've read many statements of the WHATWG members which seem to justify my summary of their attitude. They're now more difficult to find in original sources than I thought, but thankfully we've got Jean-Baptiste Clamence who has collected some of them:
http://lastweekinhtml5.blogspot.com/search?q=rdf
http://lastweekinhtml5.blogspot.com/search?q=rdfa
Rather than basing arguments on divined motivations, I'm trying to extrapolate past statements and actions of groups of people to what can be expected from them in the future. I'd rather entrust developing standards solving particular use cases to people sincerely interested in those use cases. The WHATWG says they arent't. And then they come up with a directly competing proposal which dismays the community. So, I'm asking bluntly but honestly: for whom is Microdata good? Nobody seems to want it for its merits. The only real reason for supporting it is fighting RDFa - the technology so far most successful at spreading RDF.
> Please reconsider this objection, and if you wish to pursue it, please 
> restate it in much less objectionable terms.
I hope the above additional explanation satisfies your concern. It also adds the point about the interested community's dismay at Microdata. On the other hand, RDFa 1.0 adequately satisfies the needs and RDFa 1.1 will satisfy more of them.

Let me also remind that we're an HTML group. The number of things tangential to HTML we work on should be limited. Especially where W3C already has a group addressing a given problem space.

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
> - Publish the one canvas API spec that has actually been put forward for publication. This seemed like the least problematic option.
If it seems so to the WG as a whole, I'm not going to fight this step by escalating the issue or pursuing a permathread. The rest of your message reassures me that at this time we're not losing the chance to involve some sought after people thus broadening the expertise and consensus for this work.
> I will ask you to either voluntarily 
> withdraw this objection
Sam, please note that I didn't object to this publication. I expressed my lack of support and described what prevents it. So, as Ian likes to sum up: done.

Best regards,

Krzysztof Maczyński

Received on Thursday, 11 February 2010 16:07:30 UTC