pre-XHTML discussions: sprinkles/islands [was: ...]

Murray Altheim wrote:
[...]
> 
> You surely aren't trying to state that the W3C has ever endorsed
> Microsoft's use of 'XML sprinkles' or 'islands'? I can't find any
> W3C NOTE on the subject,

There is a note on the subject:

XML in HTML Meeting Report
W3C Note 11 May 1998 
     http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-xh-19980511

It's quite clear about the level of endorsement or lack thereof:

"Status of This Document 

This document summarizes the discussion and conclusions of a meeting
held to coordinate across several W3C Working Groups. While the
decisions of this forum are not binding on any of the working groups,
they
represent substantial experience and analysis and should guide future
work. 

Please direct comments to www-html, a public discussion forum. 

This document is a NOTE made available by the W3 Consortium for
discussion only. This indicates no endorsement of its content, nor that
the
Consortium has, is, or will be allocating any resources to the issues
addressed by the NOTE. "

> nor are there any 'agreements' regarding
> its use that I'm aware of. As such it remains as always a proprietary
> Microsoft 'feature', not part of any W3C specification.

Microsoft did the community the courtesty of discussing their design
with some part of the W3C membership and allowing the record to
be distributed to the public. That's something. But no, it's not
W3C endorsement.

As to the particular issue chris mentioned:

> Chris Wilson wrote:
> [...]
> > The <v:rect> is a VML element, referenced by a namespace declaration at the
> > top of the document and linked up to a behavior.  XML elements in HTML -
> > "sprinkles" - were discussed in a W3C-sponsored meeting titled "XML in HTML"
> > several years ago.  I believe a Note was released of the agreements therein.

Very little was actually agreed. In particular...

| The discussion of using XML markup in HTML documents such that it
| would be "significant" to stylesheet and DOM implementations did not
| reach a clear consensus. 

Somebody (hint hint) was supposed to draft a proposal for review:

| A proposal for a "sprinkles" mechanism is the subject of a Working
Draft in
| progress. 

but that never happened.

-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Wednesday, 23 February 2000 12:38:57 UTC