RE: SVG 1.2 Comment: vector effects

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004, Doug Schepers wrote:
> | 
> | To be honest, four years ago SVG wasn't even on our radars. 
> 
> From the SVG 1.0 Spec [1]:
> 
> "The authors of the SVG 1.0 specification are the people who participated in
> the SVG 1.0 Working Group as members or alternates.
> 
> Authors:
>     John Bowler, Microsoft Corporation <johnbo@microsoft.com>
> <snip />
>     Scott Furman, Netscape Communications Corporation <fur@netscape.com>
> <snip />
>     Håkon Lie, Opera <howcome@operasoftware.com >
> <snip />
>     Kevin McCluskey, Netscape Communications Corporation
> <kmcclusk@netscape.com>
>     Tuan Nguyen, Microsoft Corporation <tuann@microsoft.com>"
> 
> So it seems that it was in the minds of a few people at those places. 
> And Adobe had implemented a plugin long before SVG became a Spec, so 
> it's not as if it was an unreachable goal.

Looking at the mailing list archives to see what the people you mention 
above did while members of the working group is quite interesting. At 
least two of them advocated keeping SVG simple, and their specific 
suggestions did not seem to make the final specification. (In at least one 
case, the suggestion in question is actually part of the CSSWG's last call 
comments on SVG 1.2.) Three sent very few mails overall.

I'm sure you are aware that it is one thing to be a member of a group, and 
quite another for the group's work to be, as I said, "on the radar".


> | The problem is that whatever we implement, our customers will demand 
> | that we do everything that the W3C has stamped.
> 
> There are many W3C Specs that Opera hasn't implemented.

Indeed. We get requests for many of them. Implementing a little bit of 
one, though (e.g. CSS1) opens the flood gates for requests for more 
features in that line of specs ("implement CSS3 opacity!".)


> In any case, you don't seem to think that people want SVG for any more 
> than the simplest of graphics, so why would they demand more than 
> SVG1.1?

People demanded XHTML support for years, until eventually we added it. Yet 
nobody uses XHTML on the Web, despite every big browser that has had a 
major version number release in the last two years supporting it. 
Similarly, Mozilla supported MNG for several years. When support was 
removed (for various reasons, including the fact that nobody used it) 
there was a large clamour of demand for the feature to be returned.

I don't know why people request features they don't use, but they do.


> If you're concerned, why don't you implement SVG1.1 first, and see what 
> people say after that point. I will personally buy 10 copies of Opera on 
> that day.

Can we hold you to that? :-)


> SVG is clearly now about more than vector graphics. Please understand 
> that.

If it is, then I have concerns over W3C process. Features that are not 
about vector graphics shouldn't be developed by the vector graphics group 
in the graphics activity.


> | It _is_ an important group, of course, but for most users, 
> | their primary contact with vector graphics is sites like:
> | 
> |    http://badgerbadgerbadger.com/
> | 
> | ...and I don't see anything in the graphics of that animation that 
> | requires more than <path> and animation features.
> 
> Now you're trying to be insulting. While I love the site you reference, that
> is not the primary use case for SVG developers. Nor would 'path' and
> animation features suffice for the promise of SVG.

Of course it isn't the primary use case for SVG developers -- I never said 
it was. I said it was the primary contact that users had with vector 
graphics. Most vector graphics on the Web are Flash, not SVG.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'