- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@adobe.com>
- Date: Sat, 2 Jan 2010 15:58:06 -0800
- To: Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>, HTMLwg WG <public-html@w3.org>
In http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Dec/0130.html Henri Sivonen wrote: > The language aspect of the deliverable is scoped to > documents and applications on the *World Wide Web*. > Clearly, the Web isn't a "controlled environment". > I think language features aimed solely at controlled > environments fall outside the charter of this WG. > As Hixie mentioned, anyone who wants to reuse HTML > in a controlled environment can add their own features. > After all, they control the environment. First, and most importantly, the "controlled environments" of the world are definitely part of the web. While you might argue about who might define this in general, the scope of W3C working groups is determined by W3C members, and I can assert with some certainty that the W3C members who fund the W3C are as concerned -- if not more concerned -- about "controlled environments" as they are about the public web. (The WhatWG constituency is of course different, but we're talking about the scope of W3C HTML WG, and not the scope of WhatWG.) There are numerous W3C standards (as well as IETF standards) which are intended only for deployment in "controlled environments" but whose proper interoperable functioning is important for making the web "world wide". If it were impossible to use the web in intranets, if URIs didn't work for WINS resolution, they would not have been as successful or widely deployed. Features that only have benefit in controlled environments are definitely still of benefit to the public. Second, the "control" of a "controlled environment" is typically operational control -- the ability to control configurations, to insist that everyone in a group run the latest browser, plugins; the ability to restrict software deployment, or manage the security context, or filter for viruses, or ensure that web servers are properly configured to label content with correct content-type. The "control" is generally not one of being able to build and support individual, unique, or organizational-specific software. It is part of the responsibility of standards groups like W3C and IETF to develop standards that aid users of standard software in their own "controlled environments", and the suggestion that they can "add their own features" because they "control the environment" -- nonsense. Third, even if only considering web content for delivery use on the public internet, the process of building, editing, deploying content intended for the public Internet is often within a "controlled environment"; although those processes are not themselves part of public web, features that support construction and management of content prior to delivery are applicable and relevant. Larry -- http://larry.masinter.net
Received on Saturday, 2 January 2010 23:58:42 UTC