- From: fantasai <fantasai.lists@inkedblade.net>
- Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:15:13 -0800
- To: "www-style@w3.org" <www-style@w3.org>
Summary:
- Reviewed status of PFWG comment on CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders
- Argued over whether the 2007 Snapshot should exist, prompted by
the Director's suggestion that it be a NOTE instead of a REC.
- CSS2.1 Test Suite RC4 was published over the weekend. Updated
implementation reports are requested. Testers are encouraged to use
the WG harness, as this grandfathers results from unchanged tests
and presents those tests that need retesting.
====== Full minutes below ======
Present:
César Acebal
David Baron
Bert Bos
Arron Eicholz
Elika J. Etemad
Simon Fraser
Daniel Glazman
Koji Ishii
John Jansen
Brad Kemper
Hĺkon Wium Lie
Peter Linss
David Singer
Daniel Weck
Steve Zilles
<RRSAgent> logging to http://www.w3.org/2010/12/15-CSS-irc
Scribe: fantasai
Administrative
--------------
<szilles> Can we add CSS-Beijing-2007 to the agenda
Peter: Any other agenda items?
Arron: I have one about tracking Bert's edits
Sylvain: PFWG?
Peter: already on the agenda
PFWG comment on css3-background
-------------------------------
glazou: Did my action item to send official response to PFWG.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2010Dec/0302.html
glazou: We should hear back from them
Cross-WG Comments
-----------------
glazou: A year ago we discussed whethers editors should bring everything
back to the WG concall
glazou: or can the editors handle some things themselves
glazou: Apparently this is an issue for some other working groups.
glazou: When a comment comes official from a WG, it should go back to
the conference call.
glazou: Otherwise we have no means to say the answer of a given member
is the position of the WG.
glazou: It's a little change from what we decided awhile ago, but it
seems necessary.
Bert: I don't think it means the answer has to come from the chair,
but it has to be clear that it comes from the WG.
Steve: Would it suffice ...
glazou: There's a thread, and lots of responses.
glazou: Somehow have to designate that one of them is the official
position of the WG.
Steve: Sometimes we have a conclusion, but don't have exact wording.
Steve: Sometimes it's useful to designate an existing response as official.
glazou: We'll have to decide on a case-by-case basis.
fantasai: I think if we're dealing with PFWG, because they expect more
formality, we have to have every single email response be an
official WG response, whether it's asking a question or
suggesting an edit or what. But with i18n or SVG, we might
not need to be quite as formal.
glazou: We need to have a WG position on each cross-WG issue, in case
another WG has the same comment.
CSS Beijing / Snapshot 2007
---------------------------
Peter: Question from directory is whether should be REC track or WG Note
Steve: It's important to be REC track, because this is how we have
defined rolling out CSS as a series of modules.
Steve: We need to establish when we're establishing a new conformance level
Steve: The doc does define conformance criteria.
Steve: It doesn't work as a note, because that isn't something you can
conform to.
Steve: There are certainly other groups, e.g. SVG and.. Timed Text's group..
that develop profiles of their specifications as conformance levels.
Steve: Bert, you were on the phone call. Why did Ralph not think it was
a REC-track document?
Bert: It doesn't have any conformance requirements, and it's an
informative document.
...
fantasai: It's not a profile, so much as defining all of CSS as of a
particular point in time.
...
Steve: What defines conformance to CSS?
Peter: The test suite for that spec.
fantasai: No, that doesn't define conformance, it helps measure it.
glazou: Does anyone care about this set of specs as a conformance target?
glazou: Would anyone say "We implement Snapshot 2007"?
Sylvain: I wouldn't.
...
Peter: The document reads like a Note.
<dsinger> I guess I can see some point to being able to say "We implement
CSS3 2010" (and have 2011 include more modules)...
Steve: My question is, should there be a REC-track document, and how
should that be written.
Steve: Some people are making tools for this.
Steve: Such people want to know what is going to be the next level for
browsers.
Steve: What is the next 2.1
Steve: Tool vendors need to be able to expect what comes next.
Steve: Notes are not as authoritive
fantasai: There are a couple things that are normative and should be
captured normatively somewhere.
fantasai: The first thing, it defines in what order the specs modify
each other.
fantasai: Since that was an issue someone raised.
fantasai: The ordering in section 3 is normative
fantasai: Second, it defines what to do with a partial implementation
fantasai: how to ignore values and things like that
fantasai: The the third thing is, it gives recommendations for prefixing --
when your'e supposed to prefix, when you're not supposed to prefix.
fantasai: Those are the three things that are normative in this spec,
and are not captured elsewhere.
fantasai: We can split the spec into a normative spec and an informative note
fantasai: But I don't think we should drop these on the floor because
the document as a whole reads as a note.
Sylvain: Who uses this?
fantasai: Validator people use it to guide their implementation
fantasai: Anyone trying to figure out what the state of all these CSS3
modules is would find this useful.
fantasai: It would replace the CSS3 Roadmap, which presented a different
view of modularization.
glazou: Does anyone in our group use this document?
Steve: We are not the target audience. It's the people outside our group.
dbaron: *We* all know what it says.
fantasai: This is the replacement for CSS2.1
<bradk>
http://www.google.com/search?q=linkto:%20http://www.w3.org/TR/css-beijing/&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&source=hp&q=link%3A+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FTR%2Fcss-beijing%2F&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=1bde53b2ade8e603
dsinger: A lot of people talk about CSS3
dsinger: This document would define CSS3
<dsinger> would it not be most helpful to publish snapshots that include
only modules that are 'done'?
Sylvain: Nobody cares about 2007 Snapshot
Steve: Do you see value in the 2010 Snapshot?
Sylvain: I don't see the value of it.
Steve: It's the replacement of 2.1 for what the next "version" of CSS is.
Steve: It's attempting to define a set of things that are intended as
where the CSS group sees the next collection of things coming together.
<bradk> who is linking to the snapshot: http://www.google.com/search?q=linkto:%20http://www.w3.org/TR/css-beijing/
...
fantasai: The state of our modules is a mess. Nobody knows what is
stable from its status.
Sylvain: Then that's the problem we should solve
Steve: Changing the status tracking method is not giving us a target
* fantasai could somebody take over minutes so I can join PFWG call?
ScribeNick: dbaron
* fantasai thanks
-fantasai
...
sylvaing: Just make it a note and move on with the 2010 snapshot.
SteveZ: OK with me. I agree with the comment that says we shouldn't
use that name, but...
<dsinger> defining snapshots that include stable modules that are
implemented ('widely') to give people a meaning behind
'CSS3 2010' makes sense
sylvain: I don't see why the WG should be arguing about taking a
snapshot from 2007 to CR.
peterl: There is also pushback that this is a 2007 document that
should be immediately replaced by a 2010 document.
<dsinger> defining snapshots that include modules that might be done
in the future or modules that, though done, are not (yet)
'mainstream' makes much less sense
peterl: As a note, it can just be published on its own and we don't
have to wait 3 years.
peterl: There's also a mistaken impression of css3, which is a
meaningless term. We should be defining what is CSS today.
This can be a note.
<glazou> +1
peterl: I think the normative parts of this document can be folded
into a different rec-track document.
SteveZ: which rec-track document?
peterl: CSS 2.1 or a CSS core module
SteveZ: That's what, to me, the snapshots were to do.
peterl: I'm not talking about putting the list of modules in 2.1; that
should just be a note.
SteveZ: There are conformance requirements in there; the order of that
list is important.
glazou: Steve, the conformance requirements for css3 are going to change
over time?
<dsinger> there is no 'css3'
<dsinger> there is 'css3 2010', 'css3 2012'
dbaron: We're not doing a single CSS3.
glazou: That's something we can understand, not users.
<dsinger> the alternative is css3.0, css3.1, and so on...
dbaron: The point of this document was to explain that.
glazou: Given that this document is unknown in the designer community,
I think it's a failure.
sylvaing: "css3" is a mess; any time anyone submits a draft, it's
css3-something. We could make it css-something until we agree
it's part of css3.
s/sylvaing,/sylvaing:/
sylvaing: Nobody cares about a document that describes the state of the
world in 2007.
SteveZ: It's also the state in 2009.
SteveZ: I'm not arguing that we should do 2007 and not 2010. I really
don't care which is the first doc that comes out. We do need a
document that says "this is what css3 is today and this is what
conformance to css3 would mean today".
SteveZ: And this document, once published, doesn't change.
sylvaing: Do we as a WG need to spend another half hour moving to CR the
2007 version of that snapshot?
SteveZ: No, as long as we do it for 2010?
peterl: I think there's a valid question whether the 2010 snapshot should
be a rec-track document.
SteveZ: Where would you put the order of conformance?
arron: css3-mediaqueries depends on CSS21, so its conformance requires
support for the others
dbaron: I think part of the issue with the ordering is that we need to
say what overrides things in other specs, not just what is required.
glazou: I don't think we need a REC. I think an unofficial Web page
from this WG is enough.
SteveZ: I don't think it's good enough for claiming conformance. And
there's an issue of other groups defining conformance to CSS.
glazou: css3 itself is not a spec. So conformance to css3 means nothing.
peterl: If this is a REC-track doc, where is its test suite?
SteveZ: Test suites of individual modules.
dsinger: Seems all it needs to say is "you must be conformant to the
following modules"
SteveZ: And that's what it says.
peterl: Do we need to take that through the REC track?
SteveZ: yes
peterl: CSS is a moving target until this WG stops publishing docs
SteveZ: not acceptable
dsinger: And the point of the snapshots is that CSS 2010 is a stable target.
peterl: Can't that just be a note?
SteveZ: Not if you're going to define conformance.
SteveZ: ... I think they have to be targets for a given market. The
snapshot might define multiple sets for different markets.
SteveZ: Without that, you have no guarantee that different products will
behave the same way.
SteveZ: And we're back in the "good old days" of competing implementations.
SteveZ: And part of the process of what goes in the snapshot is that
there's agreement that the people who are doing this thing to be
working towards.
SteveZ: Most implementations don't work very well with changing conformance
in midstream.
sylvaing: Which company today decides what they're going to do in CSS based
on a snapshot from the WG?
SteveZ: None that I know of, but I hope that they would.
dbaron: Snapshot can also be following the implementors rather than leading.
<glazou> to be clear, I still think this document is useless, I said it
many times in the past ; I find it a waste of time and energy,
disturbing us from MUCH more important things on our radar ;
if you count the fact that just nobody ever refers to it, I think
we should dump it for good
SteveZ: A tool provider can make a statement that this tool produces code
that works with css3 part 1; it's much simpler than a list of
products and versions.
sylvaing: Does Adobe refer to snapshots in documentation of their products?
SteveZ: We don't trust CSS3.
peterl: This is a three year old document, and it had to be because of the
levels of the modules it's referring to. And if it's a REC-track
document, we'll always have that problem.
SteveZ: That's fine.
<glazou> szilles: can you please explain "don't trust" ?
...
peterl: And that means we'll be publishing snapshots out of date.
dsinger: But that's exactly right.
dsinger: You can always implement the modules ahead of the snapshot.
sylvaing: Do we need a snapshot document to do this? Every time somebody
writes a module it gets tagged "css3". Maybe we could not add
"css3" until it's done?
dsinger: I think putting "css3" in the module names is confusing.
dbaron: I think we did agree to drop that about 4 years ago, but we never
did...
glazou: Even if we drop it, Web authors will still use it.
glazou: For them, it's the next version of CSS, called CSS3, whether you
like it or not.
SteveZ: But they can't go look at the set of specs called "css3".
dsinger: The rest of the world is talking about CSS3, and I think we need
to give that a definition.
glazou: We have one document, "Selectors", without CSS3 in the title, and
everyone calls it CSS3 selectors.
dsinger: Someone should look through the module names and come up with
recommendations for changes, and whether we should do this bundling.
<Bert> (Selectors does have level 3, namespaces doesn't)
SteveZ: You'll get lack of agreement about which of the modules constitutes
a reasonable set for interoperability. I don't care whether it's
documenting semi-future or the past. I think it's useful to have a
set of things that are frozen in time, and you can have more than
one of these sets (over time).
SteveZ: What I find surprising is that I thought we had this discussion
when we created the snapshots, but we seem to be bringing up the
same things that caused us to create snapshots in the first place.
sylvaing: Can we agree that ... ? I don't see the utility of debating
moving 2007 to CR.
SteveZ: I don't care about 2007, but I care about 2010.
SteveZ: I believe the text for 2010 is going to be basically the same as
the text for 2007, except the module list.
<glazou> sorry guys, cannot rejoin the call
peterl: Out of time, not sure I'm hearing consensus.
SteveZ: I don't think we have consensus yet.
SteveZ: I think a number of us believe a snapshot that documents a stake
in the ground is useful, and another group believe that ...
glazou, it's past the end time
SteveZ: We're ducking the issue of that we need to work at publicizing it.
SteveZ: So if we do this we need to make sure people understand what it is
and how to use it.
sylvaing: I don't think it has to be a REC. But it needs to be useful and known.
sylvaing: If nobody finds it there's no point.
SteveZ: I think the intent was it would show up under /TR/CSS3
<dsinger> I guess "CSS3.2 is defined as containing the following modules"
is OK, not as good as a conformance statement
peterl: /TR/CSS
peterl: Suggestions on how to move forward?
sylvaing: Not move 2007 through the whole transition request until we
figure this out?
dsinger: ... and remove "css3" from names of modules.
* glazou hopes you all understand that releasing a CSS 3.X every time we
have a new stable module is crazy from a user's perspective
peterl: I believe we have agreement there. Question is whether /TR/CSS
needs to be REC-track or can be a NOTE.
peterl: Maybe discuss over email?
dsinger: Also ask people at W3C who objected to it being a REC-track
document?
glazou: Ralph?
Test Suite
----------
peterl: We have RC4 online, and now need more data
peterl: Harness will go to the tests we need the data the most for.
peterl: We need more results to get good blocking data.
peterl: So work on that for next week?
peterl: There's a teleconference next week but not the week after.
Received on Wednesday, 15 December 2010 23:15:50 UTC