Re: TWO Change proposals for ISSUE-41 : Distributed Extensibility

On Wed, 17 Mar 2010, Julian Reschke wrote:
> On 17.03.2010 09:40, Ian Hickson wrote:
> > On Wed, 17 Mar 2010, Julian Reschke wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > It would be hugely irresponsible for us to leave HTML unmaintained 
> > > > while still in use. I'm shocked anyone in the standards community 
> > > > would even consider anything different. Specs must be living 
> > > > documents.
> > > 
> > > I'm considering anything different because I look at the past and 
> > > there wasn't a WG for a long time.
> > 
> > The only time there hasn't been a working group responsible for HTML 
> > was briefly in the early 90s, and as far as I can tell even if there 
> > was no working group, there were still people working on it the whole 
> > time (e.g. Tim and Dan).
> 
> HTML 4.01 hasn't been maintained at all until the new WG was started, as 
> far as I can tell.

HTML has been in continuous maintenance by open working groups since 2003 
(formally since 2004), and was maintained continuously until about 2001. 
(It was actually maintained between 2001 and 2003 also, but mostly by word 
of mouth; the relevant errata never got published.)


> > Now certainly sometimes the relevant working group doesn't spend as 
> > much time working on errata as one would hope (e.g. HTML4's errata was 
> > somewhat left alone from 2000 to 2003), but even that didn't stop 
> > extensions from being coordinated, it just happened elsewhere. So past 
> > experience suggests such problems are self-correcting.
> 
> Ah, "elsewhere".

I don't really care what label we give the working group working on HTML. 
The point was that standards organisations extending the language happens 
so rarely that it would be significantly better for such occasions to 
involve communication with the HTML WG such that clashes in syntax and 
direction are avoided by design. I don't see how it matters whether the 
HTML WG is under the IETF, as it once was, or the W3C, as it is now. It's 
the same people anyway.


> Just one more word: "canvas".

Considering the history of HTML and XHTML proprietary extensions, I'd say 
"canvas" was a success story.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Wednesday, 17 March 2010 09:56:39 UTC