Re: validator not doing application/xhtml+xml

Masayasu Ishikawa <mimasa@w3.org> wrote:

>[ If you want to continue this discussion, please move to www-html@w3.org.
>  This is no longer a validator's issue. ]

Iım not subscribed to www-html ATM. A snafu suring migration from an old
email address leaves me unsubscribed to a lot of w3.org lists until I have
time to remedy the situation. Sorry!


>Terje Bless <link@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>> >    http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3236.txt
>> 
>> #  This document only registers a new MIME media type,
>> #  'application/xhtml+xml'.  It does not define anything more than is
>> #  required to perform this registration.
>> 
>> This is not progress; this is status quo. The first I-D said as much.
>
>This *is* progress.  Now that 'application/xhtml+xml' appears in
>the IANA MIME Media Types registry [1], and people may officially
>use it, for example, the validator may support it.  That's quite
>different from something just mentioned in an I-D.

On one level, yes, but on the level that matters to us itıs just status
quo. The RFC registers the MIME type, but it doesnıt define it. Weıre in
exactly the same situation we were in before; we canıt implement
application/xhtml+xml because however we treat it there is a chance the
HTML WG will decide to have it mean something else, and we would carry no
authority as the RFC _explicitly_ disclaims having any meaning.

IOW, itıs there, we just canıt use it for anything.

[but see below!]


>>Is there reason to believe I will find something more substantive
>>later in that document when I find the time to read the rest of it?
>
>What "substantive" information you are looking for?

A normative definition of what, exactly, can be expected to be the body of
a MIME entity coming to us as application/xhtml+xml.

Now I havenıt actually read that document (!!!), but the last time I
checked out one of the drafts, it was riddled with language such as:

# With respect to XHTML Modularization [XHTMLMOD] and the existence of
# XHTML based languages (referred to as XHTML family members) that are
# not XHTML 1.0 conformant languages, it is *possible* that
# 'application/xhtml+xml' *may* be used to describe some of these
# documents. However, it should suffice for now for the purposes of
# interoperability that user agents accepting 'application/xhtml+xml'
# content use the user agent conformance rules in [XHTML1].

[ Emphasis added. Those latter are the ill fated ³Appendix C² rules ]
[ from XHTML 1.0.                                                   ]

...and...

# Although conformant 'application/xhtml+xml' interpreters can expect that
# content received is well-formed XML (as defined in [XML]), it cannot be
# guaranteed that the content is valid XHTML (as defined in [XHTML1]).


Without making some huge assumptions, thatıs nowhere near good enough to
support a robust implementation for the Validator. Itıs possible the final
version remedies this -- which is why Iım asking! -- but Iım inclined to be
sceptical until convinced otherwise.

Received on Tuesday, 12 February 2002 06:26:55 UTC