Conformance and Implementations

Hi,

I would be interested by your opinions.

There's a conformance section in our specs, and it's good. But 
Sometimes, it will be difficult to someone to claim conformance 
without certification process behind.

** SOMEONE could be a person, a company, an open source developper, etc. **

I think, before we do certification (if we never do), there's another 
step that could be done.

1. Someone takes the W3C Rec and implements it without any claims

2. Someone claims its support to a W3C technology.

This is just given as example, I do not claim anything about good and 
bad support of our technologies inside these products.

*EXAMPLES*

+ PHPHTMLLIB (HTML Library in PHP)
http://phphtmllib.sourceforge.net/
	"Render an entire document in HTML 4.0 or XHTML 1.0 (STRICT, 
TRANSITIONAL, or FRAMESET) compatible source, by setting 1 flag."
	There's a doc for classes 
http://phphtmllib.sourceforge.net/phphtmllib/doc/

+ XT (XSLT Processor)
http://www.jclark.com/xml/xt.html
	"XT is an implementation in Java of XSL Transformations. This 
version of XT implements the PR-xslt-19991008 version of XSLT. 
Stylesheets written for earlier versions of the XSLT WD must be 
converted before they can be used with this version of XT."
	Btw, We can find a list of limitations (things not implemented).

+ SAXON (XSLT Processor)
http://saxon.sourceforge.net/
	"An XSLT processor, which implements the Version 1.0 XSLT and 
XPath Recommendations from the World Wide Web Consortium, found at 
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xslt-19991116 and 
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xpath-19991116 with a number of 
powerful extensions"
	you have a link to Conformance and limitations of features 
http://users.iclway.co.uk/mhkay/saxon/saxon5-5-1/conformance.html

+ GOLIVE (Web editor)
http://www.adobe.com/products/golive/featurelist.html.
	"Complete support for W3C standards including SVG, and XML."
	"Create HTML 4.0 Web-based forms."

+ DREAMWEAVER (Web editor) 
http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/productinfo/features/code.html#10
	"W3C Standards and Accessibility
Dreamweaver 4 supports W3C standards on HTML, CSS and accessibility."

+ SVG Viewer 2.0 (SVG client)
http://www.adobe.com/svg/indepth/releasenotes.html
	give a list of implemented features.
	http://www.adobe.com/svg/indepth/pdfs/SVG_current_support.pdf


	So many ways to claim that a W3C technology is implemented. I 
would prefer to have in our specifications a paragraph which explains 
how to declare such a claim ala UUAG 1.0, (modular conformance).
	http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/conformance.html#conditional-conformance


	I think also that a company or a developper claiming its 
support to a W3C technology should do it but with a complete 
description of what's implemented and what's not. it means having a 
list of all supported elements and for each element the supported 
attributes.

	The list must be delivered with the product itself and not as 
an information on a website (it could be possible too). It must be 
available on an electronic and accessible form and in a paper form, 
if there's a paper manual. Each release of the product gives a new 
updated list.

I would be very happy to have comments from the Web community.

How can we formulate such a thing?
Do you want this as a developper, as a user, as an implementor?
How the list should be presented?

Thanks.

-- 
Karl Dubost / W3C - Conformance Manager
           http://www.w3.org/QA/

      --- Be Strict To Be Cool! ---

Received on Monday, 8 October 2001 13:13:05 UTC