Re: no-namespace href in SVG

Hi, Anne-

Anne van Kesteren wrote (on 10/11/2007 4:21 PM):
> 
>>>  This goes for all new features that are used without considering 
>>> compatibility. You might as well freeze development of the format.
>>
>> Don't be silly.  You're not asking for a new feature, you're asking us 
>> to change (break) an existing feature that works interoperably in all 
>> UAs that support links (not including drawing apps, printers, and the 
>> like).
> 
> No, I'm not asking you to change or break anything. Just to support 
> href= in addition to xlink:href=. Let xlink:href= take precedence over 
> href= when both are specified to ensure compatibility in case of author 
> errors and encourage UAs to implement it.

As I said before, it's reasonable, and it's something we will consider 
(I'm honestly not sure how the majority of the SVG WG feels about it, 
but I'm tentatively open to it).  But the risk of new content needlessly 
breaking in older UA (including the dominant UA) is very real, and I 
think it's glib to suggest otherwise.

Copy-paste authors are likely to get confused when presented with 
multiple options, and not check their content outside their favorite 
browser.  If, say, Firefox, Opera, and Safari all supported this, but it 
broke in IE+ASV, I would consider that a serious issue.

That said, most inline SVG doesn't work well in IE+ASV today, so that 
use case is relatively low-risk.  And if a replacement for ASV does 
materialize (such as native support in IE, or the rapidly-improving 
Renesis player), we can push them to support this, if that's the 
decision.  I just don't think the time is quite right.

Regards-
-Doug Schepers
W3C Staff Contact, SVG, CDF, and WebAPI

Received on Thursday, 11 October 2007 20:52:41 UTC