- From: Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net>
- Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:57:29 -0400
- To: "Tab Atkins Jr." <jackalmage@gmail.com>
- CC: HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
On 03/29/2011 01:36 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote: > Based on some private correspondence, please consider this to be a > Formal Objection. Recorded: http://dev.w3.org/html5/status/formal-objection-status.html#ISSUE-120 - Sam Ruby > On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Tab Atkins Jr.<jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 7:59 AM, Sam Ruby<rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote: >>> === Arguments not considered: >>> >>> Following are either direct quotes or paraphrases of arguments which >>> were put forward which were not considered. >>> >>> Running examples from the OpenGraph Protocol site through the >>> facebook linter shows that removing the prefix declaration has no >>> effect but changing it prevents any properties from being recognised. >>> Code inspection of some of the other tools indicates that there are >>> clients in Python, PHP, Ruby and Java that depend on literal matching >>> of the string "og:". >>> >>> No change proposal was put forward suggesting that all usages be >>> migrated to fixed prefixes. Nor was there any evidence put forward >>> that fixes to these tools would break content. The fact that these >>> tools have bugs is uncontested but that, in itself, does not help >>> identify the proposal that draws the weakest objections. >> ... >>> It would be important to know if Facebook's and Google's content >>> consuming code could be made work with prebound prefixes for >>> compatibility with legacy content that uses prefixes. >>> >>> We only consider proposals which actually were put forward. Neither >>> change proposal proposed standardizing Facebook's or Google's prefixes. >> >> I object to these two arguments not being considered, as they are >> directly relevant to the "we already have legacy content using >> prefixes" argument, which was considered to be the strongest argument >> and thus in need of disproving. >> >> If a large fraction of the legacy processing tools do *not* recognize >> the prefix mechanism, but instead rely on fixed prefixes (that is, >> just specially-qualified names), then that is strong evidence that >> prefixes are too complicated, as multiple tools get them completely >> wrong. >> >> Further, if, as a result of multiple tools actually recognizing >> specially-qualified names instead of names with namespace prefixes, a >> significant percentage of authored content contains "invalid" RDFa >> with wrong or missing prefix declarations, that is also strong >> evidence that prefixes are too complicated, and further, it is strong >> evidence that the "legacy content" does *not* actually use the prefix >> mechanism, but instead uses another mechanism to specially-qualify the >> names (generally, fixed prefixes) which is invalid according to RDFa >> and which would *fail* to be processed in conformant RDFa processors. >> >> That last bit is very important. If we must have RDFa, then I >> strongly object to any decision which pushes us down the RSS path >> where no processor is conformant, and the successful processors must >> use expensive reverse engineering to find the union of non-conformant >> behaviors which successfully process an appropriately large fraction >> of legacy content. We're already walking this road, but we change >> course with appropriate action now. >> >> ~TJ >
Received on Tuesday, 29 March 2011 17:57:59 UTC