Re: Conformance and Deprecated Features

Rob Lanphier writes:
>On the user agent side, I'd go further and state that the user agent
>to the version X+1 MUST implement deprecated features.

I can see the merit in the idea, but I don't think that a generic QA
group can require that all substantive WGs adopt this policy. If a
proverbial Higher Authority dictates that this should be the policy
for all *user agents*, after suitable deliberation, then the policy
can trickle down to the QAWG. It still might not be the best policy
for the broader class of all W3C-Rec-compliant software whose input
may have deprecated features. The respective substantive WGs should
consider how the deprecated features are detectable and the options
available to developers in the real world.

If a developer wants to produce two product variations, the high
performance one requiring modern input and the omnivorous one that
understands all the deprecated input but is slower, we don't want to
drive the former product out of the W3C compliance realm. In some
cases, a WG may be able to define a conformance level for each. The
QAWG should allow substantive WGs to choose that policy.
.................David Marston

Received on Wednesday, 30 January 2002 10:26:59 UTC