[whatwg] some issues

[Ian Hickson]

On Tue, 6 Jul 2004, Matthew Raymond wrote:
>>>
>>>   Now look at this URL:
>>>
>>>   http://www.hixie.ch/specs/xbl/XBL2.html
>>>
>>>   It does NOT have a Member-only designation.
>>
>> It uses the member only stylesheet, it's a member only document, if
>> that's really the defence for ignoring W3 process, it's a pretty poor
>> one.
>
> The stylesheet is not proof that the document is Member-only. All that
> means is that someone may have used a stripped down Member-only document
> as a template for another document. Also, even if you assume this one
> stylesheet reference is proof it is Member-only content, you have no
> proof that Ian knew it was Member-only, as you'd have to be looking
> carefully at the source to determine this.

This is _way_ off-topic but for what it's worth:

The XBL spec on my site was on my site for about two years before the W3C
picked up the XBL work. I had been updating the spec, with David Hyatt
and others, with the intention of working on it through the CSS working
group. It bore the W3C member-only header during this time, although
that was meaningless as the spec was not W3C work and I just needed a
stylesheet so it would look readable.

Last March, the CSS and SVG working groups decided to use my (then public,
non-W3C) spec as the basis for W3C work on XBL. I continued editing that
spec as part of this work. I added a stylesheet that said it was an
unofficial W3C working draft. Several people, using some sort of twisted
logic that I am still unable to understand, complained to the W3C that
this work was W3C work and therefore should only be available to people
who had spent the $50000 membership fee (or had, like myself, managed to
get themselves invited into the W3C), and that having it available on my
site somehow was a bad thing (maybe it was too convenient, or might
somehow encourage public feedback).

These complaints were forwarded, without attribution, to me. I asked W3C
people if they wanted me to pull the content or password-protect it in
some way, they said they did not mind that I did not. Since I use the copy
on my site to do the editing, I find it convenient to have it there, so I
left it.

I don't know whether that work is technically member-only or not. The spec
on my site is a direct descendent of the version that David Hyatt and I
submitted to the W3C back when we were both AOL employees, and has been
public for years.

In _any_ case, my apparent inability to keep things secret is unlikely to
translate into an inability to keep things open, so I really don't see how
this issue is in any way a _problem_ for WHATWG...

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'