- From: Terje Bless <link@pobox.com>
- Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 00:07:36 +0200
- To: Chris Wilson <Chris.Wilson@microsoft.com>, Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
- cc: W3C HTML WG <public-html@w3.org>
I vote “No” — that is, I Formally Object — to Questions
1 and 3 on the current WBS WG Ballot, on the following grounds:
*** Shall we Adopt HTML5 as our specification text for review?
1) It is premature to vote on the wholesale adoption of a body
of work
the weight of “HTML5”. Its adoption would too greatly
limit the WGs
freedom to arrive at its own solutions; the extant text and fundamental
assumptions would create a cognitive barrier to considering alternate
paths. The underlying assumptions color the entire body of
work and
would be essentially impossible to weed out by incremental revision.
It is also natural to assume that simple inertia would make changes
more difficult to achieve.
The proposed Editors (Ian Hickson, specifically) have volunteered
contingent on the HTML WG's main deliverable being identical
("preferably the same document"), or substantially similar,
to the
evolving work of the “WHAT WG”. This means proposed
changes would need
to meet the test of whether its importance is greater than
the threat
of the Editor resigning or divergence from the external
work, rather
than actual merit. As a result, the adoption of the “HTML5”
submission would unduly burden the WG with artificial constraints.
Furthermore, the submission was made on April 9th and a mere month
is insufficient time to even superficially review and make an
informed choice on a body of work as large and dense as “HTML5”.
The WG is still amassing members at a significant rate, and their
voices should be heard on this matter. Significantly, I
observe an
increase in the number of new members whose interest and expertise
lie in the area of Accessibility.
2) The Charter sets the scope to ?A language evolved from HTML4…?.
It is debatable whether the “HTML5” submission is, any longer,
meaningfully ?evolved from HTML4?. The natural way to achieve
the Charter's deliverable is to actually start from HTML
4.01 and
evolve the deliverable from there (possibly by adding large parts
of the “HTML5” submission and other extant sources).
3) The “HTML5” submission appears to be actively
incompatible with
previous versions of HTML (W3C and ISO specifications).
While the
Charter admonishes that the WG should not ?…assume that
an SGML
parser is used…?, neither does it (nor, indeed, could it)
say that
it should be incompatible with an SGML parser. Regardless of
what the
general desktop browser vendors have implemented, currently specified
variants of HTML are based on SGML (defined largely i terms
of it)
and SGML parsers do have a need to consume web content (the content
predating the Recommendation of the “HTML5” submission,
if nothing
else).
- In order for this Formal Objection to be removed, the
following must
be put in place;
a) Some reasonable measure to prevent the fundamental
assumptions of the
“HTML5” submission from being adopted without due
consideration by
this WG's deliverable. Also to prevent the extant text from limiting
the room for exploring alternate approaches and solutions. Further,
that measures be put in place to prevent the Editors'
threats to
resign to artificially limit the available alternatives of
the WG.
I cannot currently see what measure would achieve this, but
would be
happy see such measures identified.
b) Some reasonable measure to ensure that the resultant specification
is meaningfully evolved from HTML4. This would ideally be
to use the
HTML 4.01 Recommendation as a starting point (the basis for review),
with the “HTML5” submission relegated to “merely”
the most useful and
relevant external source (and quite probably ending up
comprising the
vast majority of the eventual text). I believe this would
satisfy the
actual requirements, if not the preference, of all
interests; including
the “HTML5” submission's backers.
c) Some reasonable measure to ensure compatibility with extant consumers
of web content, specifically that SGML parsers can be used
to process
content that by definition is SGML based. That is, some
measure must
be put in place to ensure that the result of accepting the “HTML5”
submission does not prevent an SGML parser from consuming existing
content (by, e.g., redefining the meaning of apparent SGML content
served under the text/html media type or making itself
indistinguishable from existing content).
One possible way to achieve this is to require “HTML5”
documents to
conform with SGML rules up until the end of the prolog, and
to identify
itself under SGML rules as a particular FPI, such that an
SGML parser
may discover that the document is one it cannot handle (and possibly
hand it over to a “HTML5” parser). On review and
discussion in the WG
I am confident such methods can be found which satisfy the
needs of all
parties.
Note that I have as yet not identified any substantive issue
with the “HTML5” submission that makes it unacceptable as
such. However, by accepting it as a basis for review we
effectively close avenues for making it suitable for fulfilling
the requirements of the members of the web community not
currently considered by the “WHAT WG”, while the opposite is
not true; using HTML4 as our basis does not significantly hinder
our ability to fulfill the requirements expressed as the current
“HTML5” submission (the more so should one accept the claim
that “HTML5” is in fact “evolved” from HTML4).
I fully support the stance that the HTML WG should meet the
requirements of the WHAT WG, who also claim to represent the
majority of the HTML WGs natural constituency, but not at the
expense of less well represented parties (and not, obviously,
“at all costs”).
Also note that I have serious misgivings about the current
Charter, and indeed have had to remove issues from this
objection due to them being sanctioned by the Charter and thus
out of scope for this Vote, and strongly believe all interests
could have been better maintained had not the charter limited
our scope for action.
*** Shall the editors of HTML5 be Ian Hickson and Dave Hyatt?
1) Ian Hickson has made his acceptance of nomination contingent
on the
WG's adoption of the “HTML5” submission as its basis for
review. It
is thus inappropriate, or at least unclear/confusing, to ask
for a
Vote on whether he should be the Editor before that issue
has been
decided.
2) Making the acceptance contingent on the WG's willingness to satisfy
arbitrary demands is inappropriate. Either he accepts the
role of
Editor or he does not; threatening to resign if the WG does
not choose
to meet his preference is highly inappropriate.
- In order for this Formal Objection to be removed,
the following must be done;
a) Ian Hickson must give a clear statement that he accepts the role
of Editor in the WG, that is not contingent on how the WG chooses
to produce its deliverables. Further, that he will not make
use of
his possible resignation as a treat or argument to
influence how
the WG chooses make its decisions or to produce its deliverables.
Note that there is obviously nothing that hinders Ian from
resigning this role in the future if he should, for whatever
reason, find himself unable to contribute the needed time or
resources, or because he finds his interests lie elsewhere, or
for whatever other reason. I also do not doubt Ian's
qualifications for the role or his good faith should he take it
on — indeed, I would endorse him on those merits alone — and
would strongly prefer that a way be found that would allow me to
remove this Formal Objection and for Ian to act as Editor.
I also quite support Dave Hyatt, for similar qualifications, but
he appears too uncontroversial in manner to merit much hoopla
here; you should make more unconsidered and wildly controversial
statements Dave! :-)
Finally, I was considerably ambivalent over whether to lodge a
Formal Objection on this Vote due to worry it would
significantly delay progress. Thus I would be happy to discover
ways to resolve these issues to the point where I find myself
able to remove my Formal Objection and change the Vote to Concur
if not outright support on both questions.
Respectfully,
Terje Bless
--
I have lobbied for the update and improvement of SGML. I've done
it for years.
I consider it the jewel for which XML is a setting. It does
deserve a bit of
polishing now and then.
-- Len Bullard
Received on Friday, 4 May 2007 22:08:00 UTC