- From: Ben Adida <ben@mit.edu>
- Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 11:56:20 -0500
- To: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
- Cc: public-rdf-in-xhtml-tf@w3.org
On Nov 28, 2005, at 11:14 AM, Dan Connolly wrote: > Really? I don't believe so. I've seen comments from individuals, > but I don't recall the taskforce as a whole giving a position on > this. But I may have lost track of how the taskforce makes > decisions (which is easy to do, since the only charter(s) I can > find are expired. > http://www.w3.org/2003/08/rdf-in-xhtml-charter.html#_Duration ) Dan, at this point, I feel that you're trying to bury the issue in bureaucratic technicalities. I appreciate the importance of keeping proper records, but it seems silly to claim that no such decision has been made, when all task force members who have attended telecons semi-regularly have been diligently working on this requirement as a group without any internal dissent for more than 6 months. By the way, the most recent charter and requirements are to be found in their expected location: 1) go to the Best Practices WG page: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/ 2) click to the HTML Task Force page: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/HTML/ 3) click through to the late 2004 charter and requirements: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/HTML/2004-10-12-charter http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/HTML/2004-10-12-tf.html Certainly, these documents need updating. Specifically they do not mention strongly enough that one of our main goals is reducing data duplication to help build maintainable HTML. That said, they're far more pertinent than the old link you're looking at. At the very least, the new links correctly list me as the task force chair, so Dom doesn't take the fall for my insanity :) >> and we're trying to find the time to put together all the >> pointers that clarify this requirement from all of our discussions >> and input from customers over the past 6 months. > > I look forward to more of that. > > It's risky to get into detailed design discussion in advance of > having requirements clear. Sometimes it's a good risk to take, but > sometimes not. It's only risky if we are stuck discussing process for the sake of process, rather than the issue at hand. Sometimes requirements emerge as new customers join the debate and the task force adapts to the needs of the community. If anything, this task force has been diligently working to shoot down complicated alternatives, restrict the scope of work, and generally have a minimal impact while trying to solve issues that have been dogging the RDF and HTML communities for 6 years. So, here are the pertinent questions and my best attempt at answering them according to Task Force discussions: 1) Should HTML authors be able to designate abbreviations for common RDF namespaces, like Dublin Core? The task force believes the answer is YES. Taking into account the requirement that hand-authoring HTML with RDF/A be reasonably doable, it's inconceivable to require authors to fully cite the Dublin Core namespace URI in every property of every page. Web pages would not be maintainable without them. Customers like the IPTC wouldn't even consider RDF/A without these abbreviations. 2) Should these abbreviations be able to handle all valid RDF URIs? The task force believes the answer is YES, again, as per the requirement that our solution allow for maximal RDF expression. This means QNames don't quite cut it. (Not to mention that the TAG says QNames shouldn't be used to abbreviate URIs.) 3) Should this abbreviation syntax overload the QName syntax? Well, now there's the rub. We initially thought so, and I still think so, but there are good arguments against it, and we're currently discussing alternative syntax. Which parts do you disagree with, and why? -Ben
Received on Monday, 28 November 2005 17:29:14 UTC