Re: Obsolescence notices on old specifications, again

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Glenn Adams <glenn@skynav.com> wrote:
> I work in an industry where devices are certified against final
> specifications, some of which are mandated by laws and regulations. The
> current DOM-2 specs are still relevant with respect to these certification
> processes and regulations.
>
> I do not object to adding an informative, warning notice to the status
> sections of these docs that new work is underway to replace, and eventually
> formally obsolete older DOM RECs. However, until replacement specs exist
> that have achieved sufficient maturity (namely, REC status), it would not be
> appropriate to formally obsolete the existing DOM specs.

We have repeated evidence that pretending these specs aren't obsolete
and useless hurts web implementors and authors.  We're targeting the
web with our specs, so that's extremely relevant for us, more so than
non-web industries dealing with personal regulatory issues.

Ignoring the regulatory issues for a moment, the non-web industries
harm themselves (or rather, the down-level authors writing content for
the things those industries are producing) by attempting to use these
obsolete specs as well, since they'll be producing things that don't
match the public web.

But really, the important thing is just that these specs are hurting
the web, and our primary focus is the web.

~TJ

Received on Monday, 23 January 2012 21:04:46 UTC