Re: ISSUE-88 / Re: what's the language of a document ?

Ian Hickson, Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:39:08 +0000 (UTC):
> On Thu, 11 Mar 2010, "Martin J. Dürst" wrote:

> When a feature is for use on a server by a server, interoperability isn't 
> needed and therefore the HTML5 spec is irrelevant. Servers are free to use 
> whatever mechanisms and conventions they want to get whatever effects they 
> want on their end.
> 
>> As a result, the HTML5 spec best should just say that <meta http-equiv 
>> is used primarily as meta-information on the server side and is 
>> therefore in general ignored on the client side.
> 
> It's not ignored on the client side in practice.

Yes it is. As long as you use the @lang attribute, then META 
content-langauge has no effect. Hence servers should be free to use it 
as they want = according to the HTTP specs.

	So, hereby I propose a compromise solution:

If the HTML document *doesn't* use the @lang attribute on the root 
element, then the content-language pragma is forbidden from containing 
more than one language tag - and this language tag will also define the 
language of the document.

However, if the document does use the @lang attribute on the root 
element, then authors are free to use 'http-equiv="Content-Language"' 
for what it is meant for according to HTTP.
-- 
leif halvard silli