Re: XLink conformance criteria question

Norman Walsh wrote:
> The Core WG discussed these comments and we don't agree with your
> analysis. While you're correct that the spec says "should", it says so
> in the RFC2119 sense:

I realize that.  This does not change the fact that violating the SHOULD does 
not make an application non-conformant.

> In other words, there may be applications for which the specified behaviors
> are inappropriate

Such as any UA implementing SVG?  This is the original context in which the 
problem arose; the issue has been raised with this working group before, I am 
told, and the SVG Working Group received an answer that contradicts the one I 
just got.  Please do see 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-svg/2006Apr/0027.html>, which I cited 
in my original mail.

> But an "ordinary" web browser does not have any valid reasons to
> ignore the "should"s in this case.

Again, that's not the case if one wants to implement SVG.

> I'm delighted to here that you're considering support for XLink 1.1.

We actually _have_ XLink support right now (1.0, sorta), and have for years. 
We're considering removing it, because it's not really compatible with SVG, and 
if we have to pick one or the other SVG is used more.

> I hope that this response answers your questions. Please accept my
> apologies for the tardiness of the reply.

Apologies accepted; I understand that finding time for these things can be hard. 
  Unfortunately, the reply was tardy enough that SVG 1.2 Tiny is in CR at this 
point, and lacking a reply from the XLink working group clarifying the issues I 
could not object to their incompatibilities with XLink.  So I have slim hopes of 
the incompatibilities being resolved at this point.

That said, if we can actually have a meaningful discussion about the whole 
situation (at a faster rate than one mail every 5 months), perhaps we could 
still clarify the relationship between XLink and SVG...  As an implementor, I 
would mich appreciate that.

-Boris

Received on Wednesday, 23 August 2006 15:16:41 UTC