- From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2012 20:18:32 +0000 (UTC)
- To: Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
- cc: www-archive@w3.org
(responding on www-archive since, as mentioned in the original e-mail, the WHATWG list is for technical discussions, not political ones) On Fri, 20 Jul 2012, Steve Faulkner wrote: > > I believe you have made some spurious claims, one of them being; > > "The WHATWG effort is focused on developing the > canonical description of HTML and related technologies" > > The claim that HTML the living standard is canonical appears to imply > that the requirements and advice contained within HTML the living > standard is more correct than what is in the HTML5 specification. What I meant was just that the highest priority in the WHATWG spec is in making a spec that describes what is implemented, rather than what anyone wishes was implemented. > I do not consider this to be wholly that case, in particular in regards to > author level conformance requirements and advice, where the HTML standard > has no special claim to authority No Web tech spec has any special claim to authority on any topic. > it is not the domain of browser vendors to decide what is good authoring > practise and any authoring requirements that go beyond implementation > realities. Sure. > Neither HTML5 in its current form or HTML the living standard can claim > to be a canonical description ...of anything. Sure. I agree. We can only intend to create the canonical description, as I said; we can't legitimately claim to _be_ it, that's something people have to judge for themselves based on the quality of the resulting specifications and how useful they are. > [...] of author conformance requirements for the provision of text > alternatives, as there is another document in existence also published > by the W3C that provides normative requirements for the > subject: http://dev.w3.org/html5/alt-techniques/ To the extent that it contradicts the WHATWG spec, that document's requirements are, IMHO, largely bogus. > The HTML standard contradicts the HTML5 specification (or vice versa) on > a number of author conformance requirements and advisory techniques, > including use of tables, use of ARIA and use of the title attribute. Indeed. > In respect to those author related requirements mentioned above the > HTML5 specification can currently claim to be contain a more accurate > set of requirements and advice, that takes into account current > implementation realities, thus providing author with more practical > advice and thus end users with a better experience. You can claim whatever you want. It doesn't make it true. :-) > All in all I do not agree with your claim of the HTML living standard > being canonical. What I described was our goal, or intent; what we are focused on writing. Whether we succeed or not is for others to determine. > It is unfortunately the case that we now have at least 2 specifications; > HTML5 and the living standard neither of which can claim to be canonical > description of HTML for stakeholders other than browser vendors. That's been the case for some time. -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Received on Friday, 20 July 2012 20:18:55 UTC