Re: Obsoleting some specifications

Hi David,

27.04.2017, 00:23, "David Carlisle" <davidc@nag.co.uk>:
>  > MathML 1 and 2 - there is a version 3
>
> As you note the Math WG is currently in cold storage however you could
> flag this on the www-math list.

I'll send a pointer to this discussion onto the www-math list.

[...thanks for explaining in more detail...]
> That would leave MathML 2.0 2nd edition and MathML 3.0 2nd edition.
>
> In these versions MathML 2 is with only very minor exceptions a
> compatible subset of MathML 3, and so it possibly makes sense to leave
> that so any implementations that don't implement the additional features
> can claim they support MathML 2 rather than support some MathML 3
> subset, but they could probably claim that anyway. I'm not clear to be
> honest what are the implications of marking a spec obsolete, is it just
> that it gets a banner added in place saying that it is obsolete (and
> pointing at the newer spec) or is there more to it?

The implication is effectively that it gets a banner, saying we think you should be looking at something else if you want to implement MathML. The specs are still formally W3C Recommendations, and the text is of course available, so if anyone wants to check their conformance specifically to e.g. MathML 1.0 they can do so, and there is a recognition that "obsoletion" might happen prematurely, e.g. because for some reason a whole new industry develops around MathML 1 - so it is meant to be relatively straightforward to reverse in such cases.

If there is some significant level of MathML 2 support in deployed stuff that people use, that isn't matched by MathML 3 support then it may make sense to keep both of them, in the same way that Martin noted for the XSLT example.

cheers, and thanks for the input. I hope we get more from people who specifically know MathML…

chaals

-- 
Charles McCathie Nevile - standards - Yandex
chaals@yandex-team.ru - - - Find more at http://yandex.com

Received on Wednesday, 26 April 2017 22:45:51 UTC