[whatwg] some issues

[Ian Hickson]

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004, Jim Ley wrote:
>>
>> Because changing fundamental conformance criteria of XML
>> is not within the scope of the WHATWG.
>
> So extending HTML, XHTML, and DOM and CSS are all within the scope, but
> XML not.  What is the motivation for this - you're happy to change the
> "NOT SGML" part of the WHATWG doctype, so changing the basic conformance
> requirements underlying HTML isn't a problem for the WG, could you
> explain why changing the basic conformance requirements underlying XHTML
> are out of scope?

HTML4, XHTML1, and their related DOM interfaces are no longer developed by
anyone (other than WHATWG). CSS extensions won't be done via WHATWG
(although I'm sure we'll be proposing plenty of extensions originally
conceived of in this list, in the W3C CSS working group).

On the other hand, XML is still in active development.

Also, Web Forms 2 doesn't change HTML, it merely extends it (with a few
relatively minor exceptions where the spec is out of touch with reality
anyway). What you are proposing would be a radical change to an existing,
widely supported standard, in a way directly counter to its design.

Both of these differences are the reason why the HTML spec is in the scope
of WHATWG work, but the XML spec is not.

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