- From: Nigel McFarlane <nrm@kingtide.com.au>
- Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:08:55 +1100
- To: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- CC: www-svg@w3.org, Håkon Wium Lie <howcome@opera.com>
Ian Hickson wrote: [ a great deal of noteworthy material ] I offer this as a response to solicitations for "SVG 1.2 last comments": With my journalism hat on, I find that Ian's remarks point to a significant crossroads for this draft specification in terms of the public good it might or might not do. I say this because: It is a matter of public knowledge that next-generation display systems across a broad range of devices and applications will makes improved use of 2D and 3D technologies, whether the public needs them or not. It is a matter of deep interest in both public and consumer spaces that it is made loud and clear whether any credibly architected 2D (or 3D) public standards are in the offing or not. SVG clearly stands at a tipping point where either there will be a clearly expressed top-level standard suite for display graphics, as there is for networks (the IP suite), databases (the SQL suite), messaging (the ARPA suite), documents (the XML suite) and O/Ses (the POSIX suite), or there will not. Either SVG will grandfather such a thing credibly, as part of a suite of presentational standards, or the public will miss out. The fact that the W3C is an industry consortium does not mitigate the public interest one jot. I note that Ian's comments are strongly tied to CSS as a styling technology. Nevertheless, many of his remarks launch significant questions w.r.t proper SVG 1.2 integration and delegation with other W3C standards. One can only raise one's eyebrows at the large subset of his points that seem, once stated, obvious. It seems to me that if the spec is as Ian describes, then it is only halfway to full standards integration. That is neither Arthur nor Martha (meaning neither one thing nor the other). If the spec is to be a gestalt, then XAML clearly points the way to do that; abandon pretenses of W3 standards. If it is to fit within the W3 framework, then it must fit on all criteria. I do not pretend to say what might be the case, I merely remark that Ian's comments raises many disturbing questions of these kinds. My "final comment", then, is merely that public attention to the SVG WG's activities has never been as high as it is now, especially with regard to formal responses (or non-responses) to Ian's points. regards, Nigel McFarlane.
Received on Sunday, 31 October 2004 13:05:30 UTC