[whatwg] Re: <output> and onforminput

[Malcolm Rowe]

Jim Ley writes:
>> The intention is to support all legacy browsers, including things like
>> lynx.
> That is not what Ian said before.  Please see the previous discussion.

Ok, I might have missed something, I'll admit that. I'm not about to read 
all 450+ messages in this group, but I scanned the last 100 or so. Ian has 
said things like: 

"Graceful degradation is important; if you view WF2 content in an old
non-WF2 browser, then it should still look vaguely ok -- you wouldn't
expect all the script to work in such a context, and the new WF2 features
would have no effect, but the basic content should be visible and static
features (such as non-repeated forms) should still work if submitted." 

... which is, I think, the same as what I'm saying, that the majority of new 
features won't break old browsers (though they won't be able to take 
advantage of them). Where we differ is that Ian is also proposing the 
repetition model, which can't be used realistically in non-DOM non-WF2 UA's. 
I'm not sure whether I agree that we should include it, but we are 
discussing it. 

So, perhaps I should have said, that *in general*, "the intention is to 
support all browsers". I agree that possibly, a more detailed statement on 
this would be useful. 

>> Suggesting that we're all trying to break backwards compatibility to
>> force people to adopt Opera is laughable. 
> I never suggested that, I suggested where Opera has a near monopoly
> (which it does on a some platforms) we'd be forced to upgrade at a
> cost to a new version, if the WF2 did not degrade gracefully on those
> user agents, as it looks so far, it doesn't, and Ian has stated that
> only IE6 is important.

Ok, agreed, you did say 'those of use who've brought opera browsers'. I 
apologise for mis-reading and mis-representing you. 

Whatever my own beliefs, I'm really not in a position to state the goals of 
WHATWG, so perhaps Ian should come in at this point. 

>> How is WHATWG 'controlled by 2 browser vendors'? I'm not a browser
>> vendor, except in the limited case that I sometimes contribute to
>> Mozilla. Ditto for fantasai, and yourself.
> You're not listed as a member of the WHATWG, is this list out of date
> now?

No, I'm not a member. But all three of the people I mentioned, including 
yourself, have contributed to changes in the spec. It's not true to say that 
WHATWG is 'controlled by 2 browser vendors', when the great majority of the 
discussion is being carried out in public, and Ian seems very receptive to 
comments from anyone. If anything, this is a better model than the W3C, 
where the discussion is mostly carried out in members-only lists. 

Regards,
Malcolm