Re: RDDL->RDF (was Re: Draft agenda of 22 February 2005 TAG

Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi@gmx.net> writes:

> * Henry S. Thompson wrote:
>>> What makes people think sending RDDL documents
>>> as text/html is licenced by any specification?
>>
>>Well, that document is valid (modular) XHTML. . .
>>
>>All my browsers render it very nicely. . .
>>
>>What are you suggesting it _should_ be served as?
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/ suggests application/xhtml+xml.

It also says

 "[T]he use of 'text/html' SHOULD be limited to HTML-compatible XHTML
  1.0 documents."

The discussion of HTML-compatible XHTML refers to the guidelines in XHTML
itself [1], with which the document I mentioned _is_ consistent.

However the discussion also says

 "In particular, 'text/html' is NOT suitable for XHTML Family
  document types that adds elements and attributes from foreign
  namespaces, such as XHTML+MathML [XHTML+MathML]."

I agree that a RDDL document by construction violates the implied
"SHOULD NOT" recommendation here.  I'm not sure I think that
recommendation is correct for RDDL, however, in two ways:

  1) It is framed as if this were something that follows from the
     compatibility guidelines in the XHTML REC itself, but I don't see
     anything there to justify this;

  2) It fails to anticipate what is in fact one of the main goals and
     benefits of RDDL, namely that HTML's 'ignore markup you don't
     understand' philosophy will cause _exactly_ the desired effect
     for valid RDDL documents.

I'm happy if people serve RDDL as application/xhtml+xml (*), but I
don't think serving it as text/html is broken.

ht

* Actually, I'm not, but that's because I think the whole ...+xml
media type hack is broken, but that's another story. . .

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/#guidelines
-- 
 Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh
                     Half-time member of W3C Team
    2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
            Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@inf.ed.ac.uk
                   URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
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Received on Wednesday, 23 February 2005 11:40:23 UTC