unstable dependencies

[This is an individual comment, not consensed on by any group in particular.]

In the Last Call Draft the exit and decision criteria for this review are stated as follows:

   Following completion of Last Call, the XForms Working Group has agreed
   to advance the specification according to the following exit criteria:
    1. Sufficient reports of implementation experience have been gathered
       to demonstrate that XForms processors based on the specification
       are implementable and have compatible behavior.
    2. An implementation report shows that there is at least one
       implementation of each feature.
    3. Formal responses to all comments received by the Working Group.

   If these criteria are met, the specification will advance to Proposed
   Recommendation, otherwise the specification will enter a Candidate
   Recommendation phase to ensure that the above criteria are met.

This discussion does not address what could be a key risk area: the dependency of this technology on other technologies which are not yet fully stable at this time.

Such dependencies could be considered to include, say, XML Events, X Pointer, and one might mention X Link as well.

X Forms is an advanced kind of product, a more pure 'resource module' than the W3C has produced before.  The way the host language all comes together is complex.  This language-building area is one where, once again, there are non-trivial divisions in the community.

Under the circumstances the above stability criteria may be too weak, and the intent to advance to Proposed Recommendation too agressive, to be the best choice.

Please consider all these factors before the group comes to a decision on next steps.

Al

Received on Friday, 22 February 2002 18:05:14 UTC