Re: [CSS21] Proof of CSS 2.1 / CSS 2.0

This conversation seems to be going round in circles. While I don't want to
muddy the waters too much, perhaps I could attempt to summarise?

Karl, from what I can see, your position can be summarised as:

* CSS2.1 is 'CSS Level 2, Revision 1'. It's an update to the earlier
  recommendation, and will 'become' CSS2 after PR in the same way that
  XML 1.0 third edition 'is' [the current version of] XML 1.0.

* The CSSWG maintains that any conforming CSS implementation, stylesheet,
  etc will continue to be conforming once CSS 2.1 reaches PR, hence the
  reason not to require explicit document / tool versioning.

* Some features were removed or changed in CSS 2.1 (e.g., display:marker),
  and the CSSWG is stating that these features were removed because either
  they were unimplemented, or they were implemented inconsistently.

* Although the features that were removed or changed are listed in Appendix
  C, there is no detail as to why these features were removed or changed
  other than that their very (non-)existence in CSS 2.1 implies that the
  CSSWG is asserting that one of the two conditions stated above applies.

Presumably, your concern is that a tool, document, or whatever that
previously conformed to CSS2 might suddenly stop conforming to CSS2 once
CSS 2.1 reaches PR and becomes the current version of CSS2, if the CSSWG
mistakenly changed something that _was_ being used?

(If not, could you clarify what you're worried about?)


Ian, your position seems to be that:

* Any features that were removed or changed in CSS2.1 have done so because
  of one of the two reasons described above.

* While there isn't any explicit documentation of _why_ each feature was
  removed or changed, an assertion by the CSSWG that the feature wasn't
  (properly) implemented should be sufficient, because:

   1. It would be an incredible amount of work to document the implementation
      of each and every feature (amounting to essentially an implementation
      report for the whole of CSS 2.0), and

   2. It wouldn't really achieve much, other than to fulfil an academic
      interest, and there are much better things for the CSSWG to spend its
      time on.


It seems to me that someone needs to decide whether the risk - that the CSSWG
has inadvertently changed something that people are relying on - is
sufficiently large that such an exercise would be beneficial.

Speaking for myself, I would have expected that the fact that CSS 2.1 has
been publically available for almost three years would be sufficient time for
someone to come forward to explain that yes, they were using a CSS 2.0-
compliant version of clip: rect(), for example.

(And I would also note the impossibility of _proving_ the non-existence of
any CSS2-compliant implementation without relying on such feedback.)

Regards,
Malcolm

Received on Wednesday, 24 August 2005 17:35:42 UTC