Re: proposal: have W3C HTML5 reference dated WHATWG URL standard rather than W3C copy

On 09/26/2014 07:45 PM, Arthur Barstow wrote:
> [ + W3C Director ]
>
> On 9/26/14 7:23 PM, David (Standards) Singer wrote:
>> On Sep 26, 2014, at 6:02 , Sam Ruby <rubys@intertwingly.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 09/26/2014 08:28 AM, Brian Kardell wrote:
>>>> [Snip]
>>>> Personally I would prefer if WHATWG and W3C can publish exactly same
>>>> document on bothwhatwg.org <http://whatwg.org>andw3c.org
>>>> <http://w3c.org>. I mean exactly same (maybe except visual style) so no
>>>> additional editorial effort on W3C side will be needed. Personally I
>>>> don't feel that WHATWG is currently enough stable and open body
>>>> (seehttps://whatwg.org/charter) to provide long term archival place for
>>>> specifications.
>>>> [/snip]
>>>>
>>>> Hosting an exact copy of a snapshot for reference and archival purposes
>>>> at w3c doesn't appear to bother anyone as far as I can tell, the
>>>> concern
>>>> is with unnecessary forking.  Seems sensible, does that make you feel
>>>> better about it?
>>> For that to work, at a minimum the W3C would need to publish such a
>>> snapshot.  The last time that was done was over two years ago.  A few
>>> links capturing the current state:
>>>
>>> http://www.w3.org/2014/06/webapps-charter.html#url
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/url/
>>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webapps/2014JulSep/0492.html
>>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2014Sep/0010.html
>>> http://w3c.github.io/test-results/url/less-than-2.html
>> I think that the explicit question is whether a document that is a W3C
>> CG snapshot with a suitable title, stable content, which has been
>> through an FSA pass, is good enough for this spec. for the purposes of
>> the HTML5 spec.
>>
>> how can we find out?
>
> David - my understanding of Jeff's statement in
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-w3process/2014Sep/0048.html>, is
> that the HTMLWG should ask the Director.

Essentially, yes, but it is a bit more nuanced than that.  Some insight 
can be found here:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-admin/2014Sep/0035.html

Per the Normative References guidelines[1], the goal is to get to a 
document that is the equivalent of a W3C Proposed Recommendation.  Note: 
that's a goal, not a hard requirement, but not meeting that goal means 
that it is up to us to make the case.

Until just before HTML 5.0 was to go to Proposed Recommendation, the 
plan as it was understood by PLH and the HTML WG co-chairs was that the 
WebApps WG, in conjunction with the TAG, were to get URL to CR and we 
were prepared to make the case based on preliminary test results and an 
assessment based on the strength (or lack thereof) of the dependency 
between the HTML 5.0 PR and the URL specification.

That's an example of a case we were prepared to make.  Unfortunately, we 
didn't get that opportunity.

At this point, the hope is to pull together the strongest recommendation 
we can over the next week or so and make the base case that we can.

 From my personal perspective, the recommendation with the greatest 
likelihood of success would be a WebApps Working Draft which doesn't 
contain any material which is likely to change, but does contain the 
material explicitly referenced by the HTML 5 PR[2].  This consists 
mainly of some definitions, author conformance requirements, the 
URLUtils interface, and default encode set.

Next best would be a WebApps Working Draft that contains in the status 
section an explicit assessment of what portions are stable and what 
portions are likely to change; and to present at the same time an 
assessment as to whether or not the HTML specification depends on the 
unstable portions of the spec.  My personal feeling is that statements 
along the lines of "there be (technical, large, angry) dragons."[2] 
won't help us make this case.  And that's why I pushed back on this.

Living/mutable frozen snapshots with hidden (display: none) text without 
such a published assessment as an alternative would in my estimation be 
somewhat harder to make a strong case for.

At this point, I don't see it likely that we will coalesce into a single 
recommendation over the next few days, so it may very well be that we 
present multiple recommendations.  I'm entirely OK with that.

And, sadly, given that none of the recommendations looks to be a slam 
dunk, I think we need to be prepared to execute on a plan B. [2]

Meanwhile, any help you (collectively) can provide to make the case that 
any of the alternatives are at the point of Proposed Recommendation 
stability at least for the purposes of HTML5's needs, would be appreciated.

> Tim - FYI, the head of this thread is
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2014Sep/0061.html>.
>
> -AB
>
>>
>> if it is, there is a follow-on question;  does webapps need to make
>> another copy for some other reason?
>>
>> David Singer
>> Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.

[1] http://www.w3.org/2013/09/normative-references

[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2014Sep/0079.html

[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2014Sep/0084.html

Received on Saturday, 27 September 2014 00:33:48 UTC