Re: CfC: Request transition of HTML Microdata to Candidate Recommendation

On 11/25/2012 05:21 PM, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>> The question that I'm asking the HTML WG to discuss is why it's 
>> publishing a spec whose functionality is duplicated in another W3C 
>> spec.
> 
> The HTML WG is doing so based on the following Working Group
> Decision on ISSUE-76, where the Working Group explicitly decided not
> to pick a winner between HTML Microdata and HTML+RDFa: 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Jan/att-0218/issue-76-decision.html>

The question before the HTML WG at the time was whether or not to split
Microdata out of the HTML5 specification, not the publishing track for
the Microdata document.

At the time the decision was made, RDFa Lite 1.1 did not exist, RDFa
Lite 1.1 was not a W3C Recommendation, nor did the RDFa and Microdata
functionality so greatly overlap as much as they do now.

The decision states the following under the "Revisiting the issue" section:

"If Microdata and RDFa converge in syntax..."

I argue that since Microdata can be interpreted as RDFa based on a
simple search-and-replace of attributes that the languages have
effectively converged on syntax except for the attribute names.

> This decision was largely based on the following Change Proposal, 
> which argued persuasively in favor of "allowing many flowers to 
> bloom": 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Dec/0299.html>

Yes, and at that time, Microdata and RDFa had enough differences to
warrant that approach. Fast forward two years and the differences
between Microdata and RDFa Lite are so small that they're almost
technically indistinguishable from one another to many Web developers.

We're not talking about two different flowers anymore. We're talking
about two clones that are almost technically indistinguishable from the
other.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: The Problem with RDF and Nuclear Power
http://manu.sporny.org/2012/nuclear-rdf/

Received on Monday, 26 November 2012 03:20:50 UTC