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"4.1 Good Practice A: Create subdivisions of the technology when warranted" -- One additional "technique" I would recommend here is to avoid profiling device-independent technologies in device-dependent ways. For example, having mobile profiles for markup languages. Such profiles will lead to a fragmented Web, as content written for the full profile will only work on full UAs, and content for smaller profiles will be written with the assumption that they will only be used from small devices. Instead, I would recommend having either just a lowest common denominator, implementable on all devices, or having optional features with well-defined fallback behaviour, so that they can be used in all content with the technology usably interoperable even in implementations that implement only the required parts. For example, CSS requires all UAs to implement full RGB color, but on black-and-white devices the specified colours are then down-sampled to fit the available hardware.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa-wg/2005Feb/0021.html (dh) Do we want to say anything about profiles being related to devices, or not? (kd) We always try to say that the simpler the better (about the specification) (tb) CSS has oral/visual features, for example (lr) We have a statement indicating subdivision, on this point we need more information (kd) I take the action item, since I've replied to his messages
After further discussion, the WG agreed that the current wording in SpecGL discouraging variability: "" Variability, while it can provide for broader usage of the technology, may impede interoperability. Watch out for excessive variability that which goes beyond what is needed. "" http://www.w3.org/QA/Group/2005/02/qaframe-spec/#variability was enough, and didn't think that getting into the technical details as to what is good or bad variability could be decided theoretically, but rather should be carefully evaluated by each Working Group (as expressed in "as warranted". [Turn this into WontFix once replied to originator]
setting version to LC in case of future use