RE: agenda+ SVG 2 Features and Approach

Olaf Hoffmann writes:

"If SVG on the other hand would be simplified only to a subset, that more
viewers can interprete correctly, this does not help such authors either,
because this does not cover their use case - and again they will start to
care about other problems/formats."

Agreed. There is an interesting balance between several goals: 
1. identifying the, as yet, inconsistently, or incompletely implemented
parts of existing specs SVG1=Union(SVG1.k, for all k) that authors care
about; 
2. outlining a gradual course of new expansion that addresses the bulk of
what authors think they need that would be palatable and cost effective for
implementers
3. keeping an eye on what the future should or will be beyond SVG 1. If
there are things that people want to be able to do now, but are deemed too
costly to put into SVG2, then can we at least make sure that those things
get kept on an official working wish list somewhere?

Maybe all three things can be done concurrently. I guess it also depends on
the time frame for writing SVG2. If it is a spec to be written and approved
within two years and implemented by viewers within two years after that,
that is a different SVG than one which would be written and approved within
four years and allowing another 3 to 4 years for implementations to catch
up. My concern is that if the goal is 2 + 2 = 5 years (allowing for
slippage), then we'll end up with an official wish list for SVG3 that is far
bigger than SVG2 - SVG1. (That would be a frustrating outcome, fwiw.)

If, as a part of this discussion, we keep an eye on things that are part of
SVG1, and highly desirable, but not yet consistently implemented by major
players, then this becomes the sort of canonical SVG1.99 (Tiny and Mean)
from which acid tests emerge that yield inter-viewer comparisons and enable
public relations free-market competition (rah!). Perhaps the SVG WG is
already feeling stretched too thin to be able to maintain three concurrent
efforts, but isn't that sort of what has gone on with SVG1? Maybe it
wouldn't be any worse than that.

Cheers
David

Received on Monday, 9 May 2011 11:27:20 UTC