Re: [CSSWG] Minutes and Resolutions Telecon 2011-09-07

On Sep 8, 2011, at 5:12 , John Daggett wrote:

>> jdaggett: goes back to text-orientation. issue of default
>> jdaggett: means for a string of random unichars what is the behavious in
>>         vertical with no extramarkup
>> jdaggett: non-normative wording recommends but not clear if its normative or not
>> <fantasai> Um, I don't understand why jdaggett is confused, perhaps he hasn't
>>          looked at the draft recently. It says very clearly that the
>>          orientations are unequivocally *defined* in Appendix C,
>>          because that's what he asked for
>> <dsinger> Isn't material not explicitly marked informative considered
>>         therefore normative?
>> <fantasai> dsinger: That is my understanding.
> 
> Appendix C in the last working draft [1] was labeled with "This
> appendix is non-normative."  In the latest editor's draft it's
> not labeled at all but other appendices are explicitly labeled as
> normative.  The body of W3C specs are typically considered
> normative but appendices are considered non-normative unless
> labeled otherwise (or so it was explained to me).
> 
> Additionally, the wording in Appendix C includes "When
> ‘text-orientation’ is either ‘upright-right’ or ‘upright’, the
> following settings are recommended:" which also suggests the
> definition is non-normative.  The algorithm relies on the use of
> whether a font has "vertical font settings" or not but the
> defintion of this is included as a note (i.e. green text), which
> is also informative, not normative.
> 
> Hence my confusion as to whether this is normative or not.
> 

OK, I would welcome clarification on whether appendices have a default state, but at the moment someone (like me) who is ignorant of any such rule would see
10.1 "All of the text of this specification is normative except sections explicitly marked as non-normative, examples, and notes."

and the lack of any indication of non-normative status on either the reference to the appendix, or the appendix itself, and conclude it's normative.

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Thursday, 8 September 2011 18:04:28 UTC