Call for Implementations: DOM Level 3 Core and Load/Save are W3C Candidate Recommendations

W3C is pleased to announce the following W3C Candidate Recommendations:

    DOM Level 3 Core
     http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-DOM-Level-3-Core-20031107/
    DOM Level 3 Load/Save
     http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-DOM-Level-3-LS-20031107/

There was one remaining formal objection from the I18n Working Group,
regarding the support of the character normalization:

  DOM Level 3 Core
    The optional character of the check-character-normalization parameter
    in the DOMConfiguration interface, the other one being not having it
    activated by default. A DOM user cannot do the right thing (check
    normalization unless careful consideration of the consequences...) if
    the normalization checking functionality is absent.  The DOM is
    missing functionality essential for things as simple and basic as
    string matching. See also:
    http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-dom/2003JulSep/0235.html

  DOM Level 3 Load and Save
    Given that the check-character-normalization parameter defined in DOM
    Level 3 Core is also used in the Load and Save module, implementation
    of this functionality must not be optional and must be activated by
    default.

After consideration, the Director concluded that it is not obvious that
checking the normalization of character, as defined in the Character 
Model of the Web, should be the default. In an architecture with early 
canonicalization, it is not necessarily clear that a good design 
involves possibly expensive checking of the canonicalization at each
point. It may instead involve a guarantee by the parties that 
canonicalization will be done on documents where it could be broken. 
Given the lack of implementation commitments, despite the availability 
of open source implementations of the character normalization, the 
Director decided to move the DOM modules to Candidate Recommendations, 
without modifications.

=========================================
Proposed Recommendation Entrance Criteria
=========================================

The DOM Working Group charter includes the following success criteria:

  Before new DOM specifications can become a W3C Proposed Recommendation,
  every feature specified in the DOM Level 3 specification must have been
  implemented at least twice for at least one of the bindings. These
  interoperable implementations must be developed independently by two
  different organizations.
  http://www.w3.org/2003/08/dom-wg-charter.html#criteria

The DOM Working Group expects to show two implementations of every 
feature defined in the DOM Level 3 Core and Load and Save modules before
requesting to advance to Proposed Recommendation status.

Given the lack of implementation commitments regarding character 
normalization, the DOM Working Group considers it "at risk". This 
affects the "check-character-normalization" and "normalize-characters"
parameters defined in the DOMConfiguration interface. The Working Group
MAY remove the parameters before requesting Proposed Recommendation  status.

To allow time to developers to provide implementations, the DOM Working
Group does not expect to request to advance this document to Proposed
Recommendation status sooner than one month from now (8 December 2003).

===================================
What Candidate Recommendation Means
===================================

Excerpted from the Process Document, Section 5.2 [1], the description of 
Candidate Recommendation:

  "A Candidate Recommendation is a document that W3C believes has
  been widely reviewed and satisfies the Working Group's technical
  requirements. W3C publishes a Candidate Recommendation to gather
  implementation experience."


Philippe Le Hégaret, DOM Activity Lead,
for the DOM Working Group.
 
[1] http://www.w3.org/2003/06/Process-20030618/tr.html#RecsCR

Received on Friday, 7 November 2003 14:17:22 UTC