- From: Robin Berjon <robin@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 15:42:26 +0200
- To: www-international@w3.org, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@annevk.nl>
- CC: Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org>, "addison@amazon.com Phillips" <addison@amazon.com>
Hi Anne,
> Given http://www.w3.org/2013/09/html-faq#shouldifork I'm no longer
> okay with this group publishing a copy of the Encoding Standard. That
> would be hypocritical.
It's not hypocritical. Forking should be avoided, and we wouldn't bother
forking if it were available. To quote the key part from the question
you reference:
"Forking a specification imposes high costs, and is therefore not
recommended."
-- http://www.w3.org/2013/09/html-faq#shouldifork
This is textbook RFC2119 wording. As a refresher:
SHOULD NOT
This phrase, or the phrase "NOT RECOMMENDED" mean that
there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances when the
particular behavior is acceptable or even useful, but the full
implications should be understood and the case carefully weighed
before implementing any behavior described with this label.
W3C is clearly stating that forking is NOT RECOMMENDED. However, I
believe that the patent policy is a "valid reason in particular
circumstances when the behaviour is acceptable".
If you can get the requisite RF protection for WHATWG documents, then
you can be pretty sure that no one will bother forking that document.
What would be the purpose? It's just extra work.
But you don't have it under an RF license, so in accordance with the
rules laid out in the FAQ this really needs to be forked. It's not
hypocrisy, on the contrary, it's the only rational option.
So, do you have any remaining concerns?
--
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ - @robinberjon
Received on Tuesday, 8 October 2013 13:42:40 UTC