Re: Mozilla Proposal for HTML5 Spec Licence

Hi Henri

>> In real life, however, nobody important is actually trying to fork the W3C HTML5 specification.
>
> Not at this very moment, no. But the permission to fork is about
> long-term insurance against unfortunate future events.

The spec has been forked and it can be expected that as new decisions
by the HTML WG up to and during last call do not go Ian hicksons way
we can expect to see futher divergence.

the whatwg spec says [1]

"Is this HTML5?
In short: Yes."

it goes on to include a list of differences between the W3C HTML5
specification and what Ian Hickson claims to be HTML5

*Instead of this section, the W3C version has a different paragraph
explaining the difference between the W3C and WHATWG versions of HTML.
* The W3C version refers to the technology as HTML5, rather than just HTML.
* Examples that use features from HTML5 are not present in the W3C
version since the W3C version is published as HTML4 due to W3C
publication policies.
* The W3C version defines conformance for documents in a more
traditional (version-orientated) way, because of a working group
decision from March 2011. This specification, in part driven by its
versionless development model, instead uses a conformance definition
that more closely models how specifications are used in practice.
* The W3C version omits a paragraph of implementation advice because
of a working group decision from June 2010.
* The W3C version includes a paragraph of advice redundant with the
ARIA specifications because of a working group decision from March
2011.
* The W3C version gives incomplete advice regarding the alt attribute
and instead references other documents on the matter because of a
working group decision from March 2011.
* The W3C version includes a link to an incomplete document that
contradict this specification because of a working group decision from
Februray 2011.

This difference for example:
"The W3C version gives incomplete advice regarding the alt attribute
and instead references other documents on the matter because of a
working group decision from March 2011."

results in a normative statement contradicting a normative statement
from a W3C specification

so i believe laurence's statement and your agreement to be an
incorrect account of what is happening.


[1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/introduction.html#is-this-html5?


regards
stevef

On 13 April 2011 08:00, Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi> wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-04-12 at 11:34 -0700, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
>> In real life, however, nobody important is actually trying to fork the W3C HTML5 specification.
>
> Not at this very moment, no. But the permission to fork is about
> long-term insurance against unfortunate future events.
>
> >From the past data we know that in June 2004 the W3C Members held a vote
> to prevent the HTML5 work inside the W3C and as a result, the WHATWG
> forked HTML in the conceptual sense but had to do it by re-expressing
> things from scratch instead of reusing existing spec text.
>
> If at a future date the W3C Members held a vote to prevent HTML work at
> the W3C once again, it would be very unfortunate to have to write a
> re-expression of all the functionality from scratch again.
>
> My personal view is that wanting to deny the long-term insurance against
> unfortunate events is a sign of doubt about the W3C Membership's trust
> in the W3C being able to avoid the reoccurrence of an unfortunate
> situation where such insurance would be useful. And when the Membership
> doesn't trust enough its own ability to steer the W3C in the future in a
> way that makes question of forking moot by not causing circumstances
> requiring a fork, I think it's all the more important to maintain the
> permission to fork by reusing text.
>
> Also note that decisions not to work on something at the W3C have taken
> place more recently than June 2004. In 2009, the W3C decided to stop
> working on XHTML 2.0. While I applaud the decision to stop spending W3C
> resources on XHTML 2.0, I think it would be bad to use copyright to
> prevent the people who worked on XHTML 2.0 from taking their spec text
> and continuing the work at another venue if they wanted to continue the
> work (without claiming it's W3C work), because if something I had been
> working on got axed by the W3C and I still believed the work was worth
> continuing, I'd want to have the opportunity to continue.
>
> --
> Henri Sivonen
> hsivonen@iki.fi
> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
>
>
>



-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG

www.paciellogroup.com | www.HTML5accessibility.com |
www.twitter.com/stevefaulkner
HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text alternatives -
dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/
Web Accessibility Toolbar - www.paciellogroup.com/resources/wat-ie-about.html

Received on Wednesday, 13 April 2011 08:16:56 UTC