[whatwg] Inferring rel="feed" from the media type

[James M Snell]

Ok, so quick question that will clear things up significantly for me:

Is HTML5 intended to be a description of the Way Things Are or a
description of the Way Things Ought To Be?

If the former, then folks who want to change the status quo have no
other option than to pursue the development of a separate specification
and hope that folks will pick it up.

Is that an accurate statement?

- James

Ian Hickson wrote:
> [snip]
> It's widespread _today_, such that UAs today can't change their behaviour. 
> Thus we can't change the spec today.
> 
> If you reduced the volume of such usage, then it would be worth 
> revisiting, but unless that happens, we're merely talking hypotheticals.
> 
> Personally I wouldn't be optimistic about the ability to change the legacy 
> data; historically it has not been possible. I don't really know of any 
> successful attempt, to the point where browsers historically have even 
> tried using different processing modes -- the whole quirks mode thing -- 
> to get around legacy content incompatible with the specifications.
> 
> 
>> Are you able to analyze what proportion of those pages are hosted by the 
>> top, say, 10 hosters?
> 
> Not from my current data set, no.
>