[whatwg] [WA1] Markup for vCalendar and vCard

[Ian Hickson]

Boy did this get out of hand.

Matthew. I encourage you to send your proposals to this mailing list. The 
e-mail you sent with your proposal is still in my queue, along with all 
the other WA1 and WF2 proposals that have been sent and have not yet 
received technical replies. It will be given the same consideration as all 
the other proposals, including Tantek's and anything else I (or whoever 
the spec editor is at that time) come across.

There is no conspiracy here. Please relax. The only reason I suggested 
contacting Tantek is because I know he's been working on this topic, that 
he has some very good ideas, and that he is welcoming feedback. I would 
have thought that working with him on a proposal would have been more 
productive than working on independent proposals. However, that was merely 
a suggestion and was not meant to imply that other proposals would be 
ignored or given a different level of consideration.

In particular, please don't think that I will be swayed by flashy 
graphics, fancy markup, diagrams, or wiki-based development. At the end of 
the day I'm just looking at technical ideas on their technical merit, 
regardless of who came up with them and how they were presented. Some of 
the things in WF2 were originally just doodles people left on my 
whiteboard, others were formal proposals that went through the W3C or IETF 
recommendation tracks.

Also, progress on WHATWG specs is going at its own rate, and is not 
controlled by progress on external drafts or proposals.


On Wed, 23 Feb 2005, Matthew Raymond wrote:
> 
> In fact, I've been asking for a WHATWG wiki for quite some time.

I don't have the resources to set that up, but if you want to set up a 
wiki.whatwg.org site I could get you an account. However, I'm not really 
sure what the point is. As far as I'm concerned this mailing list is the 
most convenient way for me to handle input. I wouldn't monitor a wiki (or 
probably even look at it) if one was created.


> Oh, one other thing. If you're going to like to a spec, the page should 
> be static, not a wiki. Otherwise, you could inadvertently allow anyone 
> and their mother to change part of a WHATWG spec at will.

I do not intend to normatively reference easily editable resources. The 
links are currently purely informative to give people an idea of what was 
being considered when that part of the spec was written.


> Actually, you gave a specific time you'd be working on it...
> 
> "I'm not planning on touching the relevant sections of WA1 until 
> Tantek's drafts are much more stable."

I spoke ambiguously, my apologies. What I meant was that by the time I 
next touched those sections, I expected Tantek's drafts to be much more 
stable. (In particular, I am currently prioritising folding HTML4, XHTML1, 
and DOM2 HTML into WA1, adding the section on the Window interface, and 
speccing the new interfaces for networking and messaging. There is a LOT 
of work there.)


> > If your proposals are technically superior to other proposals, then, 
> > once it comes to including a calendar mechanism in the WA1 spec, the 
> > WHATWG members (probably represented by me) will use your proposals.
> 
> When will that be? When you're ready, or when Tantek is? (No offense to 
> Tantek. This is an argument of procedure rather than character.)

When I, or whoever is editing the spec, is ready.


> > > Might I also point out that the wikis you posted URLs to have NO 
> > > COPYRIGHT NOTICES, NO OBVIOUS LINKS TO A COPYRIGHT POLICY and NO 
> > > COPYRIGHT METADATA, and that the domain is that of THE COMPANY 
> > > TECHNORATI. Who's to say his company won't just turn around and 
> > > claim copyrights and patents to the whole mess?
> > 
> > All good points to raise with Tantek.
> 
> Not if you're linking to them through the WA1 spec.

Whatever becomes the calendar/card section of WA1, I expect it to be 
completely defined in the WA1 spec, not reference an external spec. 
(Except if the definition is in terms of an external data model, such as 
an alternate serialisation of vCard -- in that case, the serialisation and 
interpretation would be in WA1, but the data model and semantics would be 
in the external spec.)

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