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PDF is mentioned in about 20 times in the HTML5 spec of which about 7 or 8 of them are in normative text (such as the one below on HTMLImageElement). However, there no reference that defines PDF. I would recommend that it be ISO 32000-1:2008 as that reference is the international standard. BUT since the W3C has concerns over "pay-for-access" documents, please use the FREE version of the standard that Adobe distributes (by agreement with ISO). That document can be found at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/PDF32000_2008.pdf. Making this simple change will then ensure that there is no question about what developers should be using if/when implementing support for PDF in their products.
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If you have additional information and would like the Editor to reconsider, please reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest title and text for the Tracker Issue; or you may create a Tracker Issue yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document: http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html Status: Additional Information Needed Change Description: no spec change Rationale: I cannot see any reference to PDF other than in examples. Some of these are in normative text, but those are all clearly marked with "e.g." or "for example". Please either say exactly where PDF is referred to in a normative context, or explain why we should have references (presumably informative) to specifications that are only mentioned in examples or non-normative contexts. Note that there are many other formats that are mentioned only in examples. E.g., one example in "The source element" mentions H.264, AAC, MP4, MPEG-4, AMR, 3GPP, Theora, Vorbis, Ogg, Speex, FLAC, and Dirac. Do you think that all of these formats should have informative references to the relevant standards added? If not, why is PDF different?
Your point is well taken. In that case, I would recommend that the reference be added as an informative reference (aka bibliographic). I would say that any other format mentioned also be listed there as well, so that implementors have official references for any mentioned material.
But why do implementors need that? These are only examples and do not have any material effect on implementations.
I am not familiar with the rules for W3C standards, but in other bodies where I have edited documents (ISO, ETSI, etc.) there are requirements that any other standard mentioned must be referenced in either normative or informative references.
I guess you are right that this needs to be done at some point. Lowering priority as it is not very important.
(In reply to comment #2) > In that case, I would recommend that the reference be added as an informative > reference (aka bibliographic). I would say that any other format mentioned > also be listed there as well, so that implementors have official references for > any mentioned material. That's a lot of work for no actual benefit I can see. Implementers of HTML are unlikely to want to implement most of these other formats, and they should be as capable of finding the relevant standards as we are. (In reply to comment #4) > I am not familiar with the rules for W3C standards, but in other bodies where I > have edited documents (ISO, ETSI, etc.) there are requirements that any other > standard mentioned must be referenced in either normative or informative > references. I'm pretty sure that there is no such rule in W3C's Process. Particularly not for things only mentioned in passing in examples. (In reply to comment #5) > I guess you are right that this needs to be done at some point. Lowering > priority as it is not very important. Why does it need to be done at some point?
Short of locating an actual W3C-wide policy for references, the CSS Working Group has both "normative" and "other references" which are referenced differently in the specification text, for example: http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-regions/#references The SVG working group uses "normative" and "informative" references: http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/refs.html Seems like HTML5 should follow suit and this then belongs in the informative/other references.
HTML5 also has non-normative references: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/references.html#references I just question whether merely mentioning a data format in non-normative text implies we have to give a non-normative reference for it. Adopting that policy uniformly would mean adding tons of references that practically no readers will be interested in. Not many readers of HTML5 are going to be writing a PDF implementation (or H.264 or Speex or whatever), and the ones who are can probably find the standard themselves. By contrast, existing non-normative references are mostly things like Atom or NPAPI, which are simple and likely to be of interest to a lot of readers.
http://html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker?from=6313&to=6314 Please mark the bug as "CLOSED" if you agree with its resolution.
mass-moved component to LC1