Re: [CSS21] Unclear status of different versions

Ian Hickson wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Chris Lilley wrote:
> 
>>>Very well. I shall forward your request that we rescind the original 
>>>revision of CSS2 to the working group for more detailed discussion.
>>
>>You mentioned something earlier about the wisdom of putting words in 
>>another's mouth?
> 
> Chris, the three options are:
> 
>  1. Call CSS 2.1 a new edition of the original CSS2.
> 
>  2. Rescind the original CSS2.
> 
>  3. Do what the CSS working group are doing today.
> 
> You said you didn't want 3. We can't do 1, because we have made normative 
> changes. Yet you were requiring that we do either 1 or 2. That leaves 2.

I think I agree with Chris that the relationship between CSS2.1
and CSS2 and the status of CSS2 isn't very clear. The problem with
3 is that only the CSS working group seems to understand what 3
really means. Afaict, the CSS working group wants to effectively
rescind most of the CSS2 spec in favor of CSS2.1. However, a few
parts still need to be used as references for features left out
of CSS2.1 until the relevant CSS3 modules have been completed,
so the spec can't be officially rescinded.

Of course while you're all arguing about @font-face, I'm thinking
about table captions. :)

It seems to me that we really should rescind CSS2, assuming we
can get other working groups to accept that. The CSS2 spec indeed
defines some features that we want to allow browsers to support
(for example, side captions), but those definitions aren't up to
CSS2.1's quality and would probably change significantly if we
were to issue a spec that defined them now. Furthermore, it is not
evident which of CSS2's exclusive features are worth supporting
and which (such as display: marker) will be obsoleted in favor of
something different in CSS3. For these reasons, imho, CSS2 should
no longer be a normative reference for anything, and certainly
shouldn't be *recommended* for implementation.

~fantasai

Received on Wednesday, 31 August 2005 04:21:16 UTC