Re: [Json] Response to Statement from W3C TAG

* Allen Wirfs-Brock wrote:
>On Dec 9, 2013, at 5:40 PM, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
>> If TC39 said ECMA-404 is going to be replaced by a verbatim copy of the
>> ABNF grammar in draft-ietf-json-rfc4627bis-08 with pretty much no other
>> discussion of JSON and a clear indication that future editions will not
>> add such discussion, and will not change the grammar without IETF con-
>> sensus, I would be willing to entertain the idea of making ECMA-404 a
>> normative reference.

>The second paragraph is speaking about the language described by the 
>grammar, not the actual formalism used to express the grammar. I'm quite 
>sure that there is no interest at all within TC39 to ever change the 
>actual JSON language.  If you are looking for some sort of contractual 
>commitment from ECMA, I suspect you are wasting your time. Does the IETF 
>make such commitments?

As you know, the charter of the JSON Working Group says

  The resulting document will be jointly published as an RFC and by
  ECMA. ECMA participants will be participating in the working group 
  editing through the normal process of working group participation.  
  The responsible AD will coordinate the approval process with ECMA so 
  that the versions of the document that are approved by each body are 
  the same.

If things had gone according to plan, it seems likely that Ecma would
have requested the IANA registration for application/json jointly lists
the IETF and Ecma International has holding Change Control over it, and
it seems unlikely there would have been much disagreement about that.

It is normal to award change control to other organisations, for
instance, RFC 3023 gives change control for the XML media types to the
W3C. I can look up examples for jointly held change control if that
would help.

And no, I am not looking for an enforceable contract, just a clear
formal decision and statement.

>This doesn't mean that TC39 would necessarily agree to eliminate the 
>Syntax Diagrams,  or that we wouldn't carefully audit any grammar 
>contribution to make sure that it is describing the same language.  
>There may also be minor issues that need to be resolved. But we seem to 
>agree that we already are both accurately describing the same language 
>so this is really about notational agreement.

Having non-normative syntax diagrams in addition to the ABNF grammar
would be fine if they can automatically be generated from the ABNF.

I was talking about removing most of the prose, leaving only boiler-
plate, a very short introduction, and references. Then it would be a
specification of only the syntax and most technical concerns would be
addressed on both sides. If you see this as a viable way forward, then
I think the JSON WG should explore this option further.

>As a base line, ECMA-404 was created in less than a week.  It takes a 
>couple months to push through a letter ballot to above a revised 
>standard. 

The RFC4627bis draft could be approved and be held for normatives re-
ferences to materialise; this is not uncommon for IETF standards. It
usually takes a couple of months for the RFC editor to process the
document anyway, so personally a couple of months of waiting for a
revised edition of ECMA-404 would be okay with me.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
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Received on Tuesday, 10 December 2013 23:08:35 UTC