- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@adobe.com>
- Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:03:30 -0800
- To: Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>, Adam Barth <w3c@adambarth.com>, David Singer <singer@apple.com>
- CC: HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>, "'Jonas Sicking'" <jonas@sicking.cc>, Charles McCathieNevile <chaals@opera.com>
In http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0750.html,
David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote, in a discussion of ISSUE-30
longdesc, with respect to accessibility laws, regulations and
organizational policies which might refer to a particular HTML feature:
> "More to the point, they [laws, regulations and policies] were
> written with a particular version of HTML in mind and existence,
> whether or not they remembered to say so. The laws in question,
> as I understand, were never intended to be prescriptive of what
> standards-writers wrote, merely descriptive of what was in the
> said standards (the laws are prescriptive in other respects,
> of course).
> When the HTML version changes, should they wish to adopt it
> and prescribe how to use it, they are at liberty to do so."
This raises the following question:
What is a HTML version? Is there any way to distinguish one HTML
version from another?
What does "When the HTML version changes" mean ?
How could someone write an 'accessibility regulation validator'
if, as suggested, regulations might vary according to HTML version,
in the situation where HTML has no versions or version indicators?
What happens if new accessibility methods are discovered in the future?
In particular, if there is a regulation for which:
* if "longdesc" is recommended for HTML4
* something else is recommended for HTML5
* later, for some future evolution of HTML
yet something else is recommended
(as new accessibility techniques evolve)
\
... how could a validator tell if the document presented had been prepared
according to version-specific regulation, if there are no version
indicators?
Larry
--
http://larry.masinter.net
Received on Saturday, 27 February 2010 05:04:18 UTC