ACTION-350: Revise http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2009Oct/0075.html based on feedback on www-tag and the feedback from TAG f2f 2009-12-09 discussion

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2009Oct/0075.html

"safe to assume no progress" -- ht Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:32:38 +0000

Per discussion of 29 Sept 2011, assigning to Larry Masinter (was Henry Thompson). Note that there is an extensive email trail following from email http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2009Oct/0075.html

See also XML schema work on future proofing references.

My conclusion is that the advice in http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2009Oct/0075.html is too complex and ultimately wrong.

If spec A references spec B normatively -- i.e., the conformance rules of A depend on following the the conformance rules of B, then

1) the reference in a spec being considered and reviewed should include a specific version. This is so multiple parties reviewing spec A and discussing whether it should progress can make sure that if they think they agree, they're agreeing about the same thing.

2) It is natural to want to upgrade when there is a newer edition of B. But implementations which wish to conform to an specific edition of A but a later edition/version of B should be explicit about which editions they're claiming conformance with.

Weasel words in the spec itself aren't helpful.

An alternative would be, at the time A is being devleloped, to explicitly leave the reference unbounded (i.e., point out that B is evolving simultaneously).

However, specifications that reach CR should resolve these as much as possible, and specs that reach REC should not have any hidden "upgrade" paths via referenced specs.

references that are indirect (e.g., through reference to registered parameters such MIME types.

I'm willing to work on this direction with someone else.

The chair (Noah) noticed the proposed resolution from Larry above, and posted the text on www-tag for discussion:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2012Jan/0043.html

There has been a substantial discussion on the resulting thread.

There's also IETF's

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4897 "Handling Normative References to Standards-Track Documents"
and

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3967 "Clarifying when Standards Track Documents may Refer Normatively to Documents at a Lower Level"

Note that IETF also has an exception to its rules:

IETF procedures generally require that a standards track RFC may not have a normative reference to another standards track document at a lower maturity level or to a non standards track specification (other than specifications from other standards bodies).

Where W3C is considered one of the "other standards bodies", so IETF is presumably assuming that W3C has some policy here.