Re: CR exit criteria and features at risk for HTML5

On Sun, 19 Aug 2012 11:11:58 +0200, Aryeh Gregor <ayg@aryeh.name> wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 7:20 PM, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu> wrote:
>> I'm not sure what that has to do with what I said.
>>
>> The point of the two implementations requirement is to make sure the  
>> spec is in fact implementable as written.
>>
>> If it's implementable standalone but not as part of the overall web
>> platform, that's not very helpful.
>
> The point is I'd be happy with no requirement for interoperability at
> all to reach REC, because I'm only concerned about IPR requirements.

On the other hand while I favour relatively loose requirements to prove  
interoperability, I would be very unhappy to see the working group state  
that it only cares about the IPR status of a REC - while that's fine for  
an individual, there are many stakeholders who care about a REC for  
reasons other than, or as well as, IPR.

[...]
> Realistically, few features are implemented in anything but browsers
> anyway,

WYSIWYG Authoring tools implement a number of features. Validators  
implement features. Assistive Technologies implement features. Content  
management and mining systems implement features. People implement  
features in content management workflows.

Blitting pixels to a screen is only one aspect of making the web work, and  
by itself almost useless. Just as Handcrafted content is an important  
indicator of what people might do, but largely irrelevant to most people's  
real lives as they interact with the web, browsers alone are not  
responsible for the web being the almost ubiquitous, almost universal and  
generally essential technology for the world that it is today. They are  
necessary, but by no means sufficient.

> so I'm also fine with the non-experimental proviso as long as
> publicly-available browser preview editions are considered
> non-experimental.

I'm happy with this too - but I am not happy if the test boils down to  
"must work in two browsers". It must be possible to *create* HTML5 too,  
and manage it effectively for a large content provider. It must be  
possible for a small business to effectively use HTML5 without all  
hand-authoring their code. And it must be feasible for organisations to  
include HTML5 as a reference - for a Statement of Work, as a basis for  
testing a product, as something to be compatible with in developing a  
technology.

I don't know if this adds to the CR timeline, but it means that there is  
more to proving HTML5 works than getting a lot of tests from a small  
handful of browser makers, and running their products through the  
collection.

Cheers

Chaals



-- 
Chaals - standards declaimer

Received on Sunday, 19 August 2012 11:01:05 UTC