Re: 1st public HTML5 draft to be published sooner, rather than later (February 2008)

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 07:04:38 +0100, Jason White <jason@jasonjgw.net> wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 19, 2007 at 05:30:48AM +0000, Gregory J. Rosmaita wrote:
>> in any event, it's time for us individually and collectively to take a
>> long hard look at:
>>
>> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5
>>
>> and discuss what steps need to be taken to (a) preserve the  
>> accessibility advances introduced into HTML4x and (b) propose equivalent
>> or superior mechanisms, because the burden, like it or not, has been
>> squarely placed on our shoulders to do so...
>
> This has been true since the beginning of the process, and remains so  
> now.
>
> I share Gregory's process concerns regarding the introduction of changes  
> not reviewed by the working group, and the wide discretion which the  
> specification editors have taken upon themselves to modify the draft as
> they think fit based on comments received from all sources.
>
> I don't think there is much point, strategically or otherwise, in trying  
> to hold up publication of the HTML 5 draft. Publication as a working
> draft is largely a formality, fulfillment of a process requirement,
> rather than an endorsement of its contents.

I basically agree with everything Jason says. Having a Public Working  
Draft helps to focus attention on areas that are controversial - including  
the lack of clarity about what "considered" means (as far as I can tell,  
it specifically means here that the editor hasn't made a decision, given  
that the process seems to start with him making unilateral decisions -  
although according to w3C process it is possible for the Working Group to  
overrule the editor in any way they see fit, there is no guarantee of when  
this might happen beyond "before Last Call" - in other words, ther are  
lots of ways to slow down the process, but unfortunately enforcing a  
priority order of issue resolution is something the working group has so  
far not done.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
     je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals   Try Opera 9.5: http://snapshot.opera.com

Received on Thursday, 20 December 2007 17:31:45 UTC