Re: another example of HTML5 conformance and advice divergence

Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>, 2012-04-18 22:41 +0000:

> On Wed, 18 Apr 2012, Jeff Jaffe wrote:
> > On 4/18/2012 8:36 AM, Steve Faulkner wrote:
> > > [reference to WHATWG spec]
> > 
> > Perhaps your point is that it would have been clearer if things were 
> > phrased differently from the way that they are phrased in the 
> > non-normative section of the document you reference above.  If that is 
> > the assertion, I would agree.
> 
> If anyone has any feedback on the HTML standard published by the WHATWG, 
> please do not hesitate to let me know or post to the WHATWG list. Such 
> feedback, if phrased in a polite and productive manner, is always welcome.

I have some proposed wording I'd like to suggest for the "Is this
HTML5?"[1] part of the HTML Living Standard. I'm not wedded to this
specific wording, but I think adding something along the lines of the
following would be genuinely helpful.

[1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/introduction.html#is-this-html5?

[[

HTML5 is a W3C standard that is being in partnership with the WHATWG as
well as with the related W3C WHATWG Community Group[2].

[2] http://www.w3.org/community/groups/#whatwg

The WHATWG focus is on providing a specification that is as up to date as
possible with current implementations and with current discussions for
features that are not yet implemented. That is why we don't have version
numbers and refer to our specification as a Living Standard. This is vital
for browser projects and others who need to implement and test from the
latest information available.

The W3C focus is on providing a versioned HTML specification that signals
to the broader Web community when a set of features are sufficiently stable
that the community can rely on building production services and products
using those features. The current versioned HTML specification being
developed at the W3C is HTML5. The W3C believes that along with having a
living specification, a versioned HTML specification is also important for
Web developers, for others involved in developing global standards, and for
securing royalty-free patent commitments.

The WHATWG and W3C work together to keep their versions of the spec as
synchronized as possible. The W3C feature freezing makes absolute
synchronization at all times impossible, but the expectation is that
re-synchronization will take place as W3C moves to the next versioned
specification for HTML.

]]

  --Mike

-- 
Michael[tm] Smith http://people.w3.org/mike

Received on Friday, 27 April 2012 15:03:59 UTC