Re: HTML+RDFa Heartbeat Draft publishing request

Julian Reschke wrote:
> Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>> "... such as Internationalization Tag Set (ITS), Ruby, and RDFa to be
>> mixed into HTML documents"
>>
>> Some examples of such independent vocabularies include RDFa, ITS and
>> Ruby. Note in particular that these are examples, and not an exclusive
>> list of the only ones we may choose to support.
>
> I don't think anybody claimed that.

It has been claimed in the past by some people in arguing that Microdata 
was out of scope.

>> "Whether this occurs through the extensibility mechanism of XML,
>> whether it is also allowed in the classic HTML serialization [...]
>> is for the HTML WG to determine."
>>
>> The choice of whether to support it in either or both XML and HTML
>> serialisations is left up to the HTML WG.
>
> Yes. Did anybody claim something else?

No, I was just being thorough.

>> "Whether this occurs through [various options] is for the HTML WG
>> to determine."
>>
>> The mechanisms used to support them, if so desired, is also left up to
>> the HTML WG. Some possible mechanisms that may be considered are:
>> - Extensibility mechanism of XML (i.e. namespaces).
>> - Native support in the HTML serialisation.
>> (This is how we added support for Ruby)
>> - DTD and Schema modularization techniques.
>
> Yes.
>
> Let's get back to what the charter says:
>
> "The HTML WG is encouraged to provide a mechanism to permit ..."
>
> So this is about an extension *mechanism*, not a specific extension.

If you want to look at it that way, then the mechanism to do so is by 
adding native support for the vocabularies in the HTML serialisation. 
It doesn't say anywhere that it needs to a generic mechanism.

> Neither RDFa, nor Microdata are extension mechanisms that allow adding
> "independently developed vocabularies" to HTML. They operate on a
> different level.

Yes they are.  While I agree they are at a different level from things 
like Ruby and ITS, vocabularies for both Microdata and RDFa can be 
developed independently.  That's the whole point of them.  Take, for 
instance, the Creative Commons vocabulary for RDFa, or any of the 
Microformat vocabularies that have been mapped to Microdata.  In this 
sence, RDFa is both an independent vocabulary, and a mechanism for 
including other independent vocabularies.

>> And trying to twist the language of the charter, as Larry did, to
>> suggest that we are only permitted to develop one mechanism that works
>> for all of the independent vocabularies is counter productive as it
>> only serves to limit the choices available to the group, which is
>> clearly the opposite meaning intended by the parts granting the group
>> such freedom of choice.
>
> I'd be happy if we had plans/ideas for multiple of these mechanisms for
> text/html. So far we have none (unless you count the general statement
> about extensions being possible as a concrete mechanism).

You agreed above that "Native support in the HTML serialisation" was 
such a mechanism, which is exactly the technique used to incorporate the 
Microdata, Ruby and the RDFa proposal.  So how can you suddenly claim we 
have no such mechanisms?  You seem to be implying that we need a generic 
mechanism, รก la namespaces in HTML, but as explained above, that is not 
necessarily what the charter calls for, and, as a practical matter, is 
not even a viable solution.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Wednesday, 13 January 2010 14:29:05 UTC