Re: [CSS21] Unclear status of different versions

At 09:10 PM 11/30/2005, fantasai wrote:

>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so the spec can't be officially rescinded.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.

There is only one large problem with this view. Major parts of the CSS2 REC 
are normatively referenced by the XSL 1.0 REC and are implemented by XSL 
implementations. This would seem to me to be a major barrier to withdrawing 
CSS2. It also seems that redefinitions in CSS 2.1 are a problem because 
there will be two CSS's both implemented. Should not this problem have been 
discussed before making incompatible changes?


>~fantasai

         Steve
=====================================
Steve Zilles
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steve@zilles.org