Re: Obsolescence notices on old specifications, again

On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>wrote:

> 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.


In my opinion, the poor progress (in terms of time) in obtaining closure on
new specs (i.e., reaching REC status) is doing more harm than keeping
mature specs on the book. Furthermore, the industry I work in is not
something "outside the web", but is part of the web. It is just a part of
the web that tends to evolve more slowly, and, consequently, assigns more
priority to creating and maintaining formally mature specs.