Re: the role of FLD in extensions (was Re: one thing we forgot)

On Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:59:21 -0400 Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org> wrote:

> This last bit reminds me why I think we don't actually need a fight (and
> I why I decided I was okay with the text in FLD at F2F10).  I think
> you're trying to serve the extension/dialect designers who want their
> product to be a blessed standard.  I think I'm trying to serve the
> extension/dialect designers who just want to do their own thing on the
> Web, without official blessing, and somehow have it interoperate.  I'm
> okay with FLD constraining the first camp, and (realistically,
> practically) nothing we do can constrain the second camp.  The second
> camp needs social and technical mechanisms for forward and backward
> compatibility, to actually get interoperation, but they're probably less
> interested in filling into our framework.

Agree completely. People designing private extensions are free to take whatever
they want and to discard anything that doesn't suit them. They can even come up
with a completely different interchange format. Nothing we can or should do
here.

The point of FLD is to provide a sufficiently attractive way for people to
easily design dialects without the need to go through the pain of a direct
definition (cf. the direct BLD specification vs. the derived spec).  But even
then they can decide to deviate quietly or convince us to change things. FLD
just says that for officially blessed dialects they should try the latter.


	--michael

Received on Sunday, 6 July 2008 03:13:36 UTC