Re: XHTML 1.0 Content-Negotiation

Quoting Karl Dubost <karl@w3.org>:

>
> Henri and others,
>
>
> Le 2005-08-20 à 02:37, Henri Sivonen a écrit :
> > That document asks the question "Which MIME type should XHTML be
> > served with?" taking it for granted that XHTML is used without
> > discussing whether it makes sense to use XHTML.
>
> Did you have things breaking using XHTML 1.0 more than HTML 4.01 ? I
> never had. Plus the fact that nobody tells you that you are forced to
> use one format or the other. People make a choice, see the end of
> this mail.
>
> This discussion which has done again and again and again and again
> gives exactly the same arguments. I always say to the people in the
> end. "Use HTML 4.01 if you think you have more benefits doing so."
> Nothing Wrong. End of the story.

Not quite end of story.  The WAI WCAG 1.0 guidelines state:

11.1 Use W3C technologies when they are available and appropriate for a task and
use the latest versions when supported. [Priority 2] 11.1 Use W3C technologies
when they are available and appropriate for a task and use the latest versions
when supported. [Priority 2]

So if you wnat AA compliance it wpould appear that you will need to use the
latest version of W3C's document format i.e.e XHTML 1.1

Clearly there is some ambiguity - and the problem here lies in the WCAG
guidelines.  Sadly the WCAG 2.0 draft states that WCAG 1.0 should be regarded
as the authoratitive stable source and W3C have failed to produce an errate for
the guidelines, removing this requirement.

Common sense would say forget this guideline; however WCAG AA compliance may be
*required* by legislation in some countries, without any 'common sense' get out
clause.

Brian


-- 
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
BATH
BA2 7AY

Received on Saturday, 20 August 2005 13:29:54 UTC