RE: 5.2

John Slatin wrote:
"Here's a slight reworking that does little more than simplify the
syntax: == John's reworking of Jason's text== ... There are multiple,
independent, and interoperable implementations of the technologies used
by the content.

Note: Technologies, including formats, protocols, API's, etc., may be
considered independent and interoperable if they require different
operating systems or don't have substantial code in common. ==end John's
reworking=="

Lee's Comment: John's suggested text seems simple and easy to
understand.  The _NOTE_ seems to require a slight modification from "or"
to "and".  Rationale: we need to qualify that any implementation needs
to be on more than one operating system _and_ not share a substantial
amount of code.  This will be made clearer in the next sections.


John Slatin's Question:
What does "interoperable" mean in the sentence "There exist multiple,
independent, and interoperable implementations of the technologies used
by the content"?

Lee's answer: 
Interoperable would mean "programming used to help other applications"
as in the engines used by the various user agents and assistive
technologies.

John Slatin's Question:
Does content meet 5.2 if it works in Internet Explorer on both Windows
and Macintosh but not in Netscape/Mozilla?

Lee's answer:
Because we are qualifying that the codes be of substantial difference,
the issue of "it works in Internet Explorer on Windows and Mac" would
resolve itself.  Regardless of which operating system it is on, as long
as it uses the same interoperable coding, then it would not qualify as
passing this success level.  

Now, the only question we would have to qualify here is has someone
attempted to say that it works in Internet Explorer and Opera on two or
more operating systems.  My question at that point would be, "are they
using Opera in the Internet Explorer masking mode or identifying itself
as Opera?"  If a person is using Opera they have several
"identification" modes which allow it to receive pages from the server
or from some JavaScript program that it may not otherwise receive.

My only other concern would be did the developer write one of those
decision scripts that determines which page the client gets based upon
how the user agent identifies itself.  Since the majority of developers
program for Internet Explorer and Netscape, that leaves many other user
agents and browsers at peril.  However, we do have the level one success
criteria of 5.2 that will help with this problem, but not entirely
eliminate the problem. 

Comments are welcome.


Sincerely,
Lee Roberts
President/CEO
405-321-6372
Rose Rock Design, Inc.
http://www.roserockdesign.com

Received on Sunday, 29 December 2002 00:22:44 UTC