Re: Browsers

Dylan,
I will respond to two parts of your email. First you talk about Adobe's 
secretness about future implementations, and second you wonder the SVG spec 
and modules will be implemented by "modern user agents". (I'm not sure what 
'modern' means in this context, but I don't think it is that important to 
know.)

Adobe is actively implementing SVG 1.2. As features were defined within the 
SVG working group and published as drafts, Adobe has also been 
implementing. Our Technology Preview release in 2003 showed a snapshot of 
our progress with SVG 1.2 (plus some SVG 1.1 features that didn't make it 
into Adobe SVG Viewer version 3). Although it is hard to estimate 
percentages of features, my rough guess is that we have implemented 
somewhere around half of the new features in the SVG 1.2 language so far. 
We will add other SVG 1.2 features over the coming months. I believe we 
will meet most definitions of the word 'modern'.

In terms of updates to Adobe's SVG Viewer, due to Adobe policy, I cannot 
say anything about when such a release might happen nor what exact features 
it would support. However, I will say that our plans are centered on SVG 
1.2, not on SVG 1.1. We see large numbers of mission critical web 
applications using SVG 1.1 in conjunction with Adobe SVG Viewer version 3 
successfully (or Batik, depending on need). When Adobe turns the crank on a 
major new release of our SVG Viewer, it will target SVG 1.2.

Also, thanks for the recognition that the SVG working group is willing to 
tackle the hard problems. When we take on the hard problems, we try our 
best to ensure that the solutions will work universally, not just in SVG. 
Also, we try our best to leverage and integrate the work of other working 
groups in a way that promotes coherence across all of the W3C's document 
initiatives.

Jon Ferraiolo
Adobe Systems, Inc.


At 01:41 PM 11/10/2004, Dylan Schiemann wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>|> ROC> It's a resource issue. Breaking the IE monopoly and dragging the
>|> ROC> HTML+CSS Web towards standards-compliance with our limited
>|> ROC> resources is hard enough (but we're doing it). Implementing
>|> ROC> gargantuan specs like SVG 1.2 is just too much right now.
>|>
>|> I can understand that, if resources are a finite sum (add resource here
>|> takes away resource there). One of the benefits of open source is that
>|> this is not true - people interested in feature X implement feature X
>|> regardless of whether people interested in feature Y implement feature
>|> Y.
>|>
>|>
>| True, but there are limits to this.  First, if you know of someone
>| interested in
>| "feature X", who has support to work on Mozilla, send them our way.
>| I've heard
>| that Adobe has lots of implementation experience.  Would they like to
>| donate some
>| time?  Seriously, while resources are not limited in the same way, they
>| are often
>| limited in other ways.  I'm a volunteer, for example.  My management is
>| aware and
>| supportive of my involvement, but at the end of the day, its not "my day
>| job".
>| Second, and perhaps more critical, there is a significant resource
>| limitation in the
>| reviewing and superreviewing stages of the development cycle.  There are
>| just
>| not that many people who have spent enough time with the code base to
>be in
>| the position to provide r/sr on some of the code that lives down in the
>| guts of the
>| layout engine, for example.  This is a critical stage in the process,
>| and the way
>| in which new people (like me) learn the code base without breaking
>| things really
>| badly in the nightlies or releases.
>
>I ranted on this a bit last month:
>http://www.dylanschiemann.com/blog/preventingDeathSVG.html
>
>There was a recent article that Adobe was "coming up with an open source
>strategy."  As a "web app" developer, I find Adobe's lack of
>communicating their release schedule in any manner very frustrating as
>their svg implementation is the best on the market, but has a very
>uncertain future.  I am very excited about the progress mozilla has made
>thus far.
>
>The issues scooter has brought up are sadly even more endemic to other
>W3C working groups, and other standards organizations.  In my experience
>as a lurker here, this working group has been more open and receptive to
>tackling the hard problems, as opposed to others which declare
>everything out of scope.  But the comparison I make isn't so much a
>compliment to this group as the competition isn't strong, but it does
>mean that I hold out hope for the progress of this group towards an SVG
>spec and modules that will be implemented in modern user agents.
>
>- -Dylan
>- --
>Dylan Schiemann
>http://www.dylanschiemann.com/
>http://www.sitepen.com/
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin)
>Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
>iD8DBQFBkor78nLgh/JJsxERApzqAKCCjLdhjDwkcJFFLD7y5UvF0s8Q6QCfePNz
>zjDolMp2f59lL2X77Edt1B8=
>=BwWm
>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Received on Thursday, 11 November 2004 00:10:24 UTC