16:15:10 RRSAgent has joined #tagmem 16:15:10 logging to http://www.w3.org/2010/10/19-tagmem-irc 16:15:12 DKA has joined #tagmem 16:15:25 agenda: http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2010/10/19-agenda 16:15:33 rrsagent, start meeting 16:15:33 I'm logging. I don't understand 'start meeting', DKA. Try /msg RRSAgent help 16:15:39 trackbot, start meeting 16:15:41 RRSAgent, make logs public 16:15:41 Zakim has joined #tagmem 16:15:43 Zakim, this will be TAG 16:15:43 ok, trackbot; I see TAG_f2f()11:30AM scheduled to start 45 minutes ago 16:15:44 Meeting: Technical Architecture Group Teleconference 16:15:44 Date: 19 October 2010 16:15:53 scribenick: ht 16:15:58 scribe: Henry S. Thompson 16:16:07 chair: Noah Mendelsohn 16:16:43 agenda: http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2010/10/19-agenda 16:17:07 Topic: Admin and agenda review 16:19:04 present: Dan Appelquist, Tim Berners-Lee, Yves Lafon, Ashok Malhotra, Larry Masinter, Noah Mendelsohn, T V Raman, Jonathan Rees, Henry S. Thompson 16:21:05 NM: Recap of time as chair---coming up on two years 16:21:21 ... Better focussed on issues coming from the community 16:21:41 ... Some noticeable impact, but other areas where we haven't managed to achieve much 16:22:06 ... Obvious structural problems with affecting HTML5, but we have made some impact there 16:22:25 ... But on WebApps, where we said we would focus, we haven't achieved much as I hoped we would 16:23:10 ... Our history was for producing findings, which moved rapidly (some of them) and ended up being well-crafted 16:23:19 ... but that has stopped, pretty much 16:23:57 ... Partly because we said we wouldn't do Findings, but haven't succeeded in replacing that focus 16:24:14 ... Some counter-examples, but mostly because we haven't been putting the work in 16:24:34 ... People should be putting more time in 16:24:58 ... It's destructive for a group to say: Here's what we're going to do 16:25:05 ... and then not do it 16:25:24 ... I'd like to see us figure out what we can commit to realistically, and then do it 16:25:53 AM: I agree, I'm frustrated with the lack of feedback on what I have written 16:26:18 NM: Meta-discussion now, or . . . 16:26:31 TBL: A bit, before we shift to substance 16:26:55 ... I have put in less time over the last year, I'm hoping that's over and I'll be able to start contributing more 16:27:22 ... I've written about net neutrality and people being cut off from the web 16:27:29 ... which I'm passionate about 16:27:42 ... Passion is important to the TAG's motivation 16:28:02 TBL: Mime, URIs, yes, those are crucial 16:28:12 ... What is it about webapps that are crucial 16:29:04 TBL: I'm tasked with bringing back two TAG goals for the next six months to Jeff Jaffe 16:30:01 LM: The driver for anyone is "Who wants it" -- the fear of not meeting peoples interests is demotivating 16:30:29 LM: (to TBL) You and Jeff should drive us -- what should we be working on? 16:30:41 TBL: But goals for us don't come from management 16:31:03 ... Cracks in the architecture aren't noticed by management 16:31:29 NM: The webapps pblm is not that we've tried and found lack of substance, but we haven't tried (enough) 16:32:08 ... We need to locate, for example wrt Client-side storage, what the main points ought to be. 16:32:51 LM: I need to understand the whole area before I can identify the main points 16:33:50 LM: One role of W3C is to apply constraints/feed important viewpoints as policies into WG activities which they might not think or care about intrinsically 16:34:01 I also think we need to, not right away but early in the process, identify the few main points we want to make, and to whom. 16:34:09 LM: TAG findings, and the Arch Doc(s), are how we express those policies 16:34:17 raman has joined #tagmem 16:34:23 ... So our role is to articulate policies in a way that are actionable 16:34:38 TVR: It resonates, but it takes two hands to clap 16:35:16 ... But without respect from the WGs and the people outside the W3C who are driving the Web there's no leverage for what we do 16:35:22 ... and that respect has been lost 16:35:38 NM: Use cases are at the heart of establishing credibility 16:36:01 ... Saying "I have a principle" is less likely to have an impact than "I have a use case" 16:36:36 TBL: Getting the 'profile' attribute back is a clear example 16:37:07 q+ 16:37:19 I'll give this until 9:40, then on to storage 16:37:28 TVR: The successful cases are from the past, the new Web doesn't have simple axioms or examples that you can state 16:37:32 Ashok has joined #tagmem 16:38:12 ack next 16:38:16 ... The loss of community-level standing to speak by the W3C, not so much the TAG itself -- the TAG alone can't fix this 16:38:59 DKA: Wrt the W3C's role, my perspective is that in the geo-loc area, I see the W3C playing a leadership role and being successful 16:39:37 ... Also, when we ran the privacy workshop, we got people from across the eco-system, and the W3C's coordination role was recognised 16:39:50 ... We should try to build on that kind of example 16:40:12 q+ to suggest we review this later in the meeting when we go to "next actions" 16:40:18 TVR: Just emphasising that TAG impact has to be based on W3C effectiveness 16:40:50 W3C effectiveness can be improved by the TAG doing a better job 16:40:53 TBL: Let's decouple these -- the TAG should just do the work, and we'll work in other arenas to improve the impact of the W3C 16:41:00 +1 to Tim 16:41:21 q? 16:41:26 TBL: Agree with NM (and JJ) that we need to pick our focus, and get to work 16:41:34 ack next 16:41:36 masinter, you wanted to suggest we review this later in the meeting when we go to "next actions" 16:41:57 LM: When we talk about next steps, remember that the TAG being effective also feeds into W3C effectiveness 16:42:08 ... bringing the broader community together 16:42:16 ... and expanding the horizons of the WGs 16:42:30 q- 16:42:39 NM: Quality speaks for itself 16:43:03 ... I want to look at our work and be proud of it, on the basic of intrinsic merit 16:43:24 Topic: Web Applications: Client-side State 16:43:38 trackbot, Action-430? 16:43:38 Sorry, ht, I don't understand 'trackbot, Action-430?'. Please refer to http://www.w3.org/2005/06/tracker/irc for help 16:43:46 action-430? 16:43:46 ACTION-430 -- Ashok Malhotra to propose a plan for his contributions to section 5: Client-side state -- due 2010-09-09 -- OPEN 16:43:46 http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/group/track/actions/430 16:44:22 NM: Background is our commitment to build a webapps document 16:44:35 AM: Two documents: state and storage 16:44:49 NM: Oops, I missed that there were two documents 16:45:00 ... Let's start with storage, since it's linked from the agenda 16:46:05 q+ to ask about IETF work on cookies https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/httpstate/charter/, privacy issues, fragment identifiers ... (items missing that I thought would have been mentioned) 16:46:11 AM: Actually, I'll start with client-side state, which originated wrt Google Maps 16:46:19 NM: Changes since May? 16:46:40 AM: Feedback from NM, LM, JAR, and that was very helpful 16:47:07 ... In particular that not all states are reproduceable, only some, and I'm happy to take that on board 16:47:41 q+ also to talk about the perspective of "document" as "application" and "fragment" as "document state" 16:47:45 q? 16:48:58 NM: So apologies for not scheduling discussion on state 16:49:05 ... but not much change in that area? 16:49:09 AM: Right 16:49:39 (No news on state since early summer. The new draft is about storage, not state. The action was about storage, and that's what Ashok wrote about, and what we're about to talk about.) 16:49:43 AM: I would like to have a partner to actively respond to me on this 16:49:57 DKA: I'lll take that on 16:50:07 . ACTION: Ashok to write finding on client-side storage, DanA to review 16:50:16 ACTION: Ashok to write finding on client-side storage, DanA to review 16:50:16 Created ACTION-475 - Write finding on client-side storage, DanA to review [on Ashok Malhotra - due 2010-10-26]. 16:51:08 NM: Move to discussion of http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2010/09/ClientSideStorage.html 16:51:17 Ashok, what about evercookies? 16:51:39 q+ to ask about sandboxing and security issues as part of activity too 16:51:42 I see the, now 16:52:22 DKA: AM mentions evercookies, this is the kind of thing which we should focus on, it got HTML5 on the front page of the NYT 16:52:26 q+ to ask about relationship between storage and privacy 16:52:43 ... We should try to move quickly here -- can we triage this area to get something out on this quickly? 16:52:55 s/storage, and that's what Ashok wrote about/state, but Ashok wrote about storage/ 16:53:19 Note that the W3C privacy workshop and the whole new currentlness of privacy discussion in the communiyt 16:53:35 q+ to talk about accoutability as a possible TAG finding 16:54:10 ack next 16:54:11 masinter, you wanted to ask about IETF work on cookies https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/httpstate/charter/, privacy issues, fragment identifiers ... (items missing that I thought 16:54:16 ... would have been mentioned) and to talk about the perspective of "document" as "application" and "fragment" as "document state" and to ask about sandboxing and security issues 16:54:19 ... as part of activity too 16:54:50 LM: There is an IETF WG on HTTP state, cookies etc. 16:54:55 http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpstate/ 16:55:03 http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpstate/draft-ietf-httpstate-cookie/ 16:55:06 YL: the goal is to produce an interoperable spec. about cookies 16:55:19 ... both server and client 16:55:21 Noah needs to remind himself that ACTION-430 was about state, as in fwd/back stack, and this is storage, which is the new action-475 16:55:44 q- 16:55:51 q? 16:56:34 LM: What about sandboxing -- local storage is associated with a site, and there is some model about sandboxing and tainting -- that should be covered in more detail in this doc't 16:56:53 AM: Storage uses same-origin policy at the moment, subject to the same problems 16:57:28 LM: What is the problem in this space -- there's more than one approach to cross-site, how is that playing in this new area? Exposing all that would be a good idea 16:57:45 AM: I borrowed stuff that JK had written about CORS and UMP, and included that 16:58:21 LM: Wrt privacy, the general operation of "clear all my stored information" was not in webarch, cookies weren't in webarch 16:58:33 TBL: There wasn't any local storage in WebArch 16:58:43 ack next 16:58:44 noah, you wanted to ask about relationship between storage and privacy 16:59:15 NM: This is a finding on storage, but we move quickly to privacy 16:59:32 ... We're failing to notice other things which are fundamental 16:59:59 ... cookies are one, we should start with that -- here's the pure Web, in its idealised form 17:00:32 ... First look at cookies, SQL stores, etc. Are they antithetical to WebArch, or can they co-exist? 17:01:11 ... How do they relate to our existing story about WebArch -- does this e.g. compromise our ability to give URIs to things which can be distributed effectively? 17:01:21 You have to say now that now cookies are defintely part o fth eweb arch -- and clioent-side storage and state in general -- we should not ask whee they are just bad. We should define the two types of system, and give the properteis of each. 17:01:23 q+ to ask more questions 17:01:28 more questions: whether this is 'storage' or 'caching'? is it an optimization or essential? Is there a web for devices without local storage? "public terminals", "embedded clients", ... what is are the requirements for how much storage there is, the possibility of malicious sites using up storage capabilities, ....? 17:01:40 NM: What are the tradeoffs? And only then move to privacy and security 17:01:44 ack next 17:01:46 timbl, you wanted to talk about accoutability as a possible TAG finding 17:02:38 TBL: Historical stories, maybe. The first stateless story has been told. So we should define two systems, with different protocols, and then look at how to use the new one effectively 17:02:53 s/define/recognise the existence of/ 17:02:59 Should we walk through the document? 17:03:12 TBL: Privacy is really important and current, we've had all these workshops 17:03:26 ... Move from a world of access control to a world of accountability 17:03:50 ... Great talk by Hal Abelson at the last MIT Privacy workshop -- the five myths of privacy 17:03:58 there's a leap between 'storage' to 'privacy' which really seems to be about sandboxing? 17:04:11 q? 17:04:14 TBL: Proposed changing the way we think dramatically 17:04:40 ack next 17:04:43 masinter, you wanted to ask more questions 17:05:06 LM: I'm confused about the question of at what point local storage moves beyond being a cache or an optimisation 17:05:29 ... Do you have to have local storage to be an agent at all? Public terminals versus privately-confined ones 17:05:30 I like the public terminal point that Larry is making 17:05:44 Of course, offline operation is very important in some cases. 17:05:45 ... The stateless web had the advantage that local storage was not a requirement 17:06:05 LM: Is it legitimate to have a client the drops all cookies? 17:06:22 TVR: State rides on top of the stateless HTTP protocol 17:06:37 ... Some people say that's a hack, we should have had state in HTTP all along 17:06:46 ... Others say it's OK, it's good layering 17:07:22 I don't think this is a moral issue or a question of "good" or "bad" design, the question is an architectural one, of whether there are categories 17:07:48 TVR: LM is right, in the process of layering we can no longer tell if a URI is basic (clean) or basic+ (cookies needed) or basic-super-plus (need SQL-storage) 17:07:54 i would imagine an architectural requirement: web sites that use state should still work with clients that don't have state, although might be missing features 17:07:56 q+ to ask about doing it right 17:08:32 q+ to explore some kinds of findings around state 17:08:47 Need to get link to Crest 17:08:58 AM: Roy Fielding sent us a pointer to a website about C-REST (Computational REST) -- a URL really points to a computation 17:09:08 ... but it doesn't spell out state manipulation 17:09:19 http://www.erenkrantz.com/CREST/ ? 17:09:36 ... I thought you, TV, were talking about two or three classes, but I don't think you can separate them 17:09:54 TVR: I agree you can't separate them, but the question is is that a bug or a feature? 17:10:29 ... If you go to CNN with a completely clean browser, it takes you ages to actually get the news, because it requires you to answer various questions first 17:10:42 ... So a stateless client will always have that hassle 17:11:02 q+ ashok to talk about Evercookies 17:11:15 q+ to make a point on where client-side storage fits into the "apps vs. web" debate currently playing out in the mobile indtsyr. 17:11:18 TVR: The old days of getting a bag of bits, from a disk or a CGI script, which get shown, has gone 17:11:34 ... Now that bag of bits is run again on the client, and that can iterate. . . 17:11:53 ... For example the CNN video page I mentioned in my # in URL document 17:11:55 "document" <=> "application which displays document" 17:12:04 (Re TV saying "you can't tell" whether the resource is stateless, or whether there's state involved: I muse that this may be the age-old argument of 'typeless' vs 'typeful' languages - do types get reflected in names; are they inferrable from context; or do you have to dive deeper to "tell" what something is like) 17:12:41 q? 17:12:45 ack next 17:12:45 NM: Indeed how does the new document relate to the # in URI doc't? 17:12:46 noah, you wanted to ask about doing it right 17:13:36 NM: TVR said look, we had a stateless web, now this new stuff is happening, mostly it's good, but we need to be clear what's more and less good 17:13:53 ... There are some things which are pretty dangerous, paralllel to using GET to update state 17:14:26 ... Mostly we can set out the tradeoffs, so the consequences of e.g. using persistent local store, will be, both up and down 17:14:29 What is it you have to do in order to build an application which works reasonably with many different kinds of devices, all with differing local storage capabilities? is that an architectural goal? 17:14:39 ack next 17:14:40 masinter, you wanted to explore some kinds of findings around state 17:14:58 NM: compare what we did with Cool URIs don't Change -- here's what goes wrong when they do 17:15:49 LM: Interoperability -- what does it mean? Two things are interoperable if they work identically? Or something 'works' on small handheld, and on a big desktop screen? 17:16:39 ... We're now looking at a range of UAs with respect to local storage capabilities. The goal should be that the architecture makes clear where the scalability has to come 17:17:15 ... What are the principles that allow things to work with small or large storage, with any cookies/no cookies/no-cross-site cookies 17:17:28 ack next 17:17:29 ashok, you wanted to talk about Evercookies 17:17:31 JAR: Parallel to the accessiblity story 17:17:52 AM: People are very upset about Evercookies 17:18:04 ... Is this just one guy's hack, or has it become a Javascript hack? 17:18:21 NM: The guy himself did it to show how easy it was to be bad, as a warning 17:18:23 proof of concept, but each of the methods are individually exploitable 17:18:36 ... But the black hats just say "thank you" and use it 17:18:49 TVR: [missed it] 17:18:59 Yes, Larry -- there will be two parts to that, adapting diff cient side storage -- one i ssimp;ly mapping the different sorts of faclity (RDB, key/value etc, rdf, etc store) onto each other. The other will be writing an ap to deal with very difering amounts of storage. 17:19:18 The latter will be very tricky and difficult to generalize. 17:19:19 AM: Depressing, because it looks like an arms race, parallel to the virus situation 17:19:35 (The former is till to an extent in procgress wiht various layers) 17:20:28 s/[missed it]/Evercookie shows how you can create a PNG file and get it back later, which may get deleted because unrecognised. But then just use space-char-distribution in a README, which looks quite harmless/ 17:20:50 NM: Right, so "clean local storage" is just undischargeable -- what is covered? 17:21:24 TBL: I wanted to watermark email to W3C forum so I could detect leaks. . . 17:21:49 TBL: Rather than get depressed, we need to take the switch to accountability here 17:22:02 AM: You can't stop people, but you can hold them accountable, is that it? 17:23:19 JAR: That's the way security works in the real world, per Butler Lampson, for instance bank security works by accountability, not literal security 17:23:43 LM: "Gates, guards and guns" 17:24:28 JAR: Hal A's TAMI project is relevant 17:24:31 that's the decomposition of security mechanisms: locked doors that keep people out, monitors that discover when people intrude, and punishment to hold you accountable if you intrude 17:25:37 TBL: [projects from Hal Abelson's "Seductive myths about privacy" slide deck] 17:25:42 http://dig.csail.mit.edu/TAMI/ Transparent Accountable Datamining Initiative 17:28:03 Also see http://www.bitsbook.com/ book _Blown to Bits: Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion_ by Abelson et al 17:28:24 AAAA Authentication, Authorization, Accounting and Auditing 17:38:24 q+ to ask about "information" boundaries 17:38:37 you can use my birth date but not my age? 17:39:30 q? 17:41:08 ht has joined #tagmem 17:41:22 AM: Yes, I have what I need 17:41:30 NM: Due date? 17:41:45 about how to decouple storage finding from privacy 17:42:07 NM: Back to storage, we'll pick up on privacy tomorrow morning 17:42:13 http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2010/10/19-agenda.html#privacy 17:42:15 q+ 17:42:25 ack next 17:42:26 DKA, you wanted to make a point on where client-side storage fits into the "apps vs. web" debate currently playing out in the mobile indtsyr. 17:42:31 ack next 17:42:32 masinter, you wanted to ask about "information" boundaries 17:43:07 DKA: Client-side storage hugely important in the mobile industry -- apps vs. web is a hot topic 17:43:23 ... Received wisdom is building apps is great 17:43:41 ... this isn't consistent with the web-as-a-platform perspective 17:43:55 q+ to point out re client-side state the problem of referring to a thing and a veiw of that thing, or a thing and an app which can treat the thing, and th eissue o getting therese things ebtween aps -- e.g. location (address book to TomTom, choice of map) (date/time) Things of all sort (Tabulator jviews). 17:44:04 ... This means client-side storage is important to support intermittment connectivity 17:44:55 TVR: Huge confusion about "what is a web application" -- web application vs. client application is just a marketing distinction 17:45:16 ... Lots of so-called client apps are actually web-reliant 17:45:18 apps vs. web is an interesting discussion.... what is in an 'app' that isn't in the web, besides local storage? "installation", different security model, installation of preferences 17:45:27 q? 17:45:44 NM: But I can't run them on my Palm 17:45:47 q+ to talk about apps vs. web 17:46:01 TVR: That's just the old write-once-run-anywhere myth 17:46:20 ... I don't want to limit web-apps to those which just run in the browser 17:46:29 [general uproar] 17:46:38 TBL: It's an important difference 17:46:43 TVR: It's a continuum 17:47:19 TBL: "Don't build a client app, build a webapp" is my litany these days, because you can link to it, because it _will_ run anywhere 17:47:44 LM: The technology used is orthogonal 17:47:47 TVR: My point 17:48:01 LM: There is a differerence between an app and something on the web 17:48:05 There is also a difference of openness and ubiquity. 17:48:15 ... An app can assume permanent storage until it's uninstalled 17:48:25 s/web/there's a big security difference/ 17:48:41 LM: An app can install a preferences dialogue 17:48:46 If I send a link to what Tim calls an application, it will with high probability work wherevery you are. Not true of Android, Flash, iPhone etc. even if heavily using Web protocols under the cover. 17:48:53 TVR: Over time they are merging -- the distinction is only in your head 17:49:02 TBL: One has a URI and the other doesn't 17:49:07 Ashok has joined #tagmem 17:49:23 TVR: I can write an android app which jumps in and out of the browser 17:49:29 timbl: What do you mean they're merging? One has a URI and the other doesn't 17:49:30 TBL: URI is itunes: ? 17:49:40 TVR: No, http: 17:49:50 applications can use web, invoke web, etc. can they limit web access to some sites or restrict ? 17:50:00 TVR: Pandora is a good example 17:50:25 q+ to propose that we define what a "web application" is, in a way that helps clarify this 17:50:31 TVR: If the message is it's all URIs, bookmarkable, run on any browser -- yes, that's still there 17:50:43 ... but the app universe is much less clear 17:50:44 q? 17:51:06 DKA: I wasn't trying to say that people shouldn't write native apps 17:51:27 ... But the client-side storage is relevant in a decision about whether to write a native app or a web app 17:51:35 s/storage/storage provision/ 17:51:49 ... There are other differentiators, but this is an important one 17:51:56 s/this/client-side storage/ 17:52:02 i think "installation" and "preferences" are other elements 17:52:22 ... So if we're trying to bolster web-as-platform, we need to support client-side storage 17:52:36 ack next 17:52:38 timbl, you wanted to point out re client-side state the problem of referring to a thing and a veiw of that thing, or a thing and an app which can treat the thing, and th eissue o 17:52:43 ... getting therese things ebtween aps -- e.g. location (address book to TomTom, choice of map) (date/time) Things of all sort (Tabulator jviews). 17:52:59 TBL: There's a pattern which leads to grief: When we want the world to be represented by one URI 17:53:11 ... but in fact it's represented by two 17:53:24 ... Maybe we can fix this for two, even if we can't for N 17:53:46 TBL: I'm looking at a location on ???, and I want to drag it to OpenStreetMap 17:53:47 and a different security model. Perhaps applications could be designed such that applications also produce URIs so they can transition between app <==> webapp, if they're built on the same technology 17:53:48 "in the browser" is an implementation detail. what are the essential aspects of the app / web app distinction from the point of view of issues that are observable to users? 17:54:17 TBL: I can't as a user take "this website" and make it view "this location" 17:54:36 [scribe is getting lost] 17:54:36 what Tim is talking about is orthogonal -- can pieces of application 'state' be abstracted enough that they can be shared between applications.... vcard, map locations, etc. 17:55:40 TBL: Multi-dimensional reality about my interests in e.g. people -- sometimes I want them-as-located, sometimes them-as-issue-owner 17:56:36 ... Maybe this is pushing us towards multiple-view-supporting URIs -- separate dimensions, in other words -- what object do I have in view, and what application do I want to apply to it? 17:56:50 [again, scribe lost] 17:57:16 Tim wants application / web application designers to use common abstractions for common concepts (users, locations, telephones, ....) in a way that those abstractions can be shared between applications 17:57:23 TBL: for sanity, the user shouldn't have to live in a world where the thing and the view/facet/use are conflated into a single URI 17:57:23 (to propose) 17:57:33 ... we need to untangle those things 17:58:03 TVR: But then we need a universal way of identifying, e.g. locations 17:58:37 ack next 17:58:38 TBL: URI of vcard or homepage can be a person-identifier 17:58:39 masinter, you wanted to talk about apps vs. web and to propose that we define what a "web application" is, in a way that helps clarify this 17:58:44 Thre is a project called OKKAM which will give URI to loactions -- among other things 17:59:20 LM: Native apps vs. webapps -- bring different things to the table for the developer . As NM said, starts with the installation story 17:59:30 zakim, close the queue 17:59:30 ok, noah, the speaker queue is closed 18:00:23 ... There is a natural desire to get a URI which links to an application _in a state_ . Perfectly possible to have a native app which generates URIs for its states, even if it's not "a web-only" app 18:00:58 LM: That's a separate discussion from the one about what's needed for sharing across applications -- that's harder 18:02:09 [NM: Short break] 18:06:55 noahm has joined #tagmem 18:09:31 noah has joined #tagmem 18:11:58 noahm has joined #tagmem 18:15:46 noah has joined #tagmem 18:18:17 noahm has joined #tagmem 18:19:43 Resuming 18:19:46 Topic: ISSUE-54 (TagSoupIntegration-54): HTML / XML Unification 18:20:10 NM: Detailed discussion in June at the last f2f about this 18:20:42 ... Suggested that TBL, with help from the TAG, might try to pull an effort together to tackle the HTML/XML convergence problem 18:21:29 ... JJ has encouraged TBL to discuss this in public at TPAC 18:21:44 ... TBL hesitant unless there is progress to report 18:21:53 TBL: This was at TVR's instigation 18:22:27 ... There has been pushback from HTML people saying "Nothing's going to change in HTML land, nothing's going to change in XMLland, so no point" 18:22:50 ... I got management support to create a task force 18:23:06 ... If we are convinced that it has a very very crucial role to play, let's do it 18:23:16 What are the requirements for which XML was designed which are not in HTML, and which communities need those requirements? Extensibility, modularity, small footprint.... don't think we can ignore those communities 18:23:27 ... But if we think there's no choice but to have two stacks, let's not do it 18:23:33 q+ to talk about communities & requirements 18:23:55 TVR: The recognition of two stacks seems like one side to being a victory to one side 18:24:21 ... because if it goes forward, there's a real risk that [the XML] stack will atrophy and die 18:24:48 I don't think the model of "two stacks" makes sense, describes the reality 18:25:04 TVR: I don't think the two-stack story has a future 18:25:33 ... For XML to play a role on the browser-driven web, XML has to have a place in the text/html media type 18:25:43 ... We have to find a way to sell the value of the XML tool chain 18:26:08 ... Because the last mile is broken, the whole XML pipeline story is at risk 18:26:10 q+ 18:26:31 Zakim, open the queue 18:26:31 ok, timbl, the speaker queue is open 18:27:17 LM: XML was designed to meet some communities' requirements, neither the communities nor the requirements have gone away 18:27:25 q+ to say but in fact thHTML isn't the last mile any more, webapps is more than a mile and where a lot of th eprocessing happens. 18:27:36 ... So maybe XHTML was going wrong, so we needed a course correction 18:28:00 ... But that doesn't mean that we can't bring those original requirements back to the table 18:28:15 q+ to (a) suggest postmortem (b) ask about viewing html as a serialization for xml 18:28:34 LM: Those requirements: a small, clear, consistent language with not surprises, and modularity, extensibility, ??? 18:28:58 ... Not shared by the main driving force of the Web, but a big proportion of the W3C membership 18:29:20 noah has joined #tagmem 18:29:52 ... Someone argued that polyglot didn't matter, but a member (a client) said "that's all I had" -- and they wanted not just the last mile, but to roundtrip -- to take their website and push it _into_ a pipeline 18:30:03 LM: We have to bring that community with us 18:30:37 noahm has joined #tagmem 18:30:50 LM: The ebooks /epub standards uses XHTML 18:31:05 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB 18:31:09 LVR: And the Diasy XML manifest 18:31:18 s/Diasy/Daisy/ 18:31:28 s/???/archivable/ 18:32:06 rrsagent, pointer 18:32:06 See http://www.w3.org/2010/10/19-tagmem-irc#T18-32-06 18:33:09 LM: The requirement for books is in part archivability, for which a smaller more constrained language is not 18:33:19 ... a luxury, but a real value 18:33:35 TBL: So we mustn't leave the polyglot community behind 18:33:43 HST: More than that, the all-XML community 18:34:16 TBL: The HTML community will say that this represents too small a part of the Web for us to care 18:34:54 But it represents a much larger percentage of W3C's membership 18:35:11 q+ to deprecate arguments based on counting 18:35:34 (a) "leading the web to its full potential" means not looking backward but forward... what interoperabilities can we enable? 18:35:57 (b) there are too many web sites that claim they are xhtml compliant 18:36:00 TVR: I don't think the numbers game matters, or trying to 'prove' to the HTML people that they should care about XML on the Web 18:36:15 ... What I do care about is that the XML ecosystem is preserved 18:36:55 ... The W3C has created a very valuable collection of tools, where XML is at the heart, and sold it to the membership 18:37:15 ... In particular, to be able to serve the results of their pipelines onto the Web 18:37:36 TBL: So protect and defend polyglot -- what are the other requirements 18:38:02 TBL: So what other things go into the terms for taskforce 18:38:12 s/taskforce/taskforce?/ 18:38:21 TVR: Distributed extensibility 18:38:37 NM: The charter of any taskforce should take a clear stand on the HTML5 Last Call 18:38:45 ... after which it might not change much 18:39:07 NM: So are we asking the TF to take responsibility for making HTML5 right for polyglot etc. 18:39:22 ... _or_ is it focussed on life after HTML5 18:39:22 q? 18:39:33 q+ to disagree with Noah and agree with Raman 18:39:45 TVR: No win either way -- too late for Last Call, too soon for post-HTML5 18:40:11 task force should focus on long-term requirements, but be encouraged to make short-term recommendations 18:40:12 TVR: The claim is that HTML5 is continually evolving, we can utilise that to get improvements done 18:41:23 YL: The main difference in the XML stack is the extensibility that is both pervasive and easily handled, whereas in the HTML stack, largely driven by the browser implementors, extensibility is a problem to be circumscribed and worked around 18:41:50 s/difference/difference is that/ 18:42:06 noah has joined #tagmem 18:42:42 TVR: The extensibility argument has been made before many times, but on the implementation side it has been hard about turning new tags into new behaviour 18:42:55 ... whereas on the HTML side the addition of new behaviour is quite easy 18:43:24 TVR: Making a raman:person element and move it around and work with it is very important 18:43:54 ... but so is my ability to write