Re: New issue: error recovery practices (Re: Proposed TAG Finding: Internet Media Type registration, consistency of use)

> So effectively I _think_ you're agreeing that specifications by
> themselves are more or less useless without requiring conformance from
> the implementations whose results _are_ the specification as far as most
> users and developers are concerned.

not useless - they do serve as a specification that implementors 
at least consider attempting to adhere to - but this prevents neither 
bugs nor proprietary extensions nor failure to implement new features
in a timely fashion.

otoh, a requirement in the specifications to change functionality in 
a way which causes more pain to users (e.g. forbidding browser 
interpretation of improperly-labelled content) is highly likely 
to be ignored.  

Keith