In message <9406161903.AA16506@server.bonnell.com>, wpk@server.bonnell.com writ
es:
>
>My personal view is that the involvement of standards organizations in this
>activity might bring some value but that value might have a price.
>There is certainly a trade-off here and I, for one, am not sure at what point
>in the formative cycle of a world-altering technology such as the web that the
>value of standards activity can be maximized and the cost minimized.
>I suspect that now is not the right time.
[By the way... this subject seems to come up quite often... perhaps
the WWW FAQ maintainer(s) would distribute my response through the FAQ
distribution channels]
I've been variously called "the SGML cop" and "the anal retentive
one." When I go about expressing that sentiment, I usually say that I
consider myself a representative from the formal systems camp to the
WWW community ;-)
Anyway, I'm working very hard to ensure interoperability between WWW
implementations (specifically HTML implementations) through
specifications.
The IETF is the closest thing to a standards body that WWW has ever
been associated with. But it's not clear that WWW standards will
continue to evolve through the IETF infrastructure.
There is an emerging international consortium that will, hopefully,
mediate these things in the future. Contact Tim Berners-Lee
<timbl@info.cern.ch> for details -- but don't hold your breath waiting
for a response. He gets more than a couple pieces of mail every day :-)
Since W3O isn't in place yet, there's a sort of ad-hock committee or
task force, if you will, that's reviewing the HTML spec, which is
badly out of date. The current plan is to publish it as an SGML Open
technical report.
There's also something of a libWWW task force trying to coordinate
development on that body of code. Contact Eric Sink
<esink@spyglass.com> for details.
I would like to see the HTTP spec actively maintained, with some
well-defined and widely understood notion of conformance. Perhaps a
browser spec -- at least a "CCI" spec.
[By the way... are there any publicly available documents describing
the rumored interface between NCSA Mosaic and Adobe's PDF viewer?]
Here's the latest poop on the HTML 2.0 spec review...
--cut-here
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="alt"
--alt
Content-Type: text/plain
X-URI: http://www.hal.com/%7Econnolly/html-spec; vary=version
HTML Specification Review Materials
HTML SPECIFICATION
Status: In Review
The HTML specification was last published as an internet draft in July of
1993. Since then, there has been an enormous increase in the usage of HTML,
and certain new features have emerged. Widespread commercial support for
HTML is on the horizion, and while there is a relatively stable set of
features in current practice, there is no document that specifies them.
These materials comprise an effort to promote interoperability among
developing HTML implementations, and to investigate interactions with
implementations that support more or fewer features than the current
practice.
I believe the document could use some substantial reorganization, but given
the current time constraints, such editorial matters will not receive a lot
of attention for some time.
As to the technical issues, after only 10 days, we are still in the up-hill
phase of the review. I expect the technical issues to be largely stable in
another week or two.
Review and Publication Process
The WWW technology will probably be moderated by an international consortium
in the future, but since the need for this document is immediate, it will be
published as an SGML Open Technical Report. An SGML Open technical committee
is forming. Contact Dan Connolly <connolly@hal.com>, or Yuri Rubinsky,
<yuri@sq.com> for details.
The document will be publicly available throughout the review process.
Ron Daniel <rdaniel@acl.lanl.gov> has voluntered to maintain an archive of
the review comments[1]
I maintain a WIT-style (Topic/Proposal/Argument) view of the comments[2].
To prevent duplicate comments on similar issues, I reserve the right to
publicly redistribute all comments sent to me regarding the HTML 2.0 spec.I
will use discretion in making old messages available without the expressed
consent of the author, but in the future, consent will be implictly given
just by commenting on the HTML 2.0 document. If you have sent me comments on
the HTML 2.0 document that you don't want made public, please let me know.
The Contents as Hypertext[3]
Note that this hypertext is subject to change without notice.
The whole document as of the 19940613 release
Plain text[4]
Postscript[5]
Compressed tar file of all the .html nodes[6]
Mosaic Technical Support Note
To download the postscript and/or tar file:
Choose "Load To Local Disk" from the Options Menu
Select the desired anchor
Mosaic transfers the bits, prompts for a filename
Enter a filename to save the data
Don't forget to turn of "Load To Local Disk"
Related Materials
Publication History[7]
Detailed Changed Log[8]
HTML Test Suite[9]
Toward Closure on HTML [10] (see also the www-talk mailing list
archive[11] for responses)
Design Notebook[12]
Daniel W. Connolly
connolly@hal.com
$Id: index.html,v 1.13 1994/06/16 19:37:39 connolly Exp $
--alt
Content-Type: text/html
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3O//DTD WWW HTML 2.0//EN">
<HEAD>
<base href="http://www.hal.com/%7Econnolly/html-spec">
<TITLE>HTML Specification Review Materials</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>HTML Specification</H1>
<H2>Status: In Review</H2>
<P>The HTML specification was last published as an internet draft
in July of 1993. Since then, there has been an enormous increase
in the usage of HTML, and certain new features have emerged.
Widespread commercial support for HTML is on the horizion,
and while there is a relatively stable set of features in current
practice, there is no document that specifies them.
<P>These materials comprise an effort to promote interoperability
among developing HTML implementations, and to investigate interactions
with implementations that support more or fewer features than
the current practice.
<P>I believe the document could use some substantial reorganization,
but given the current time constraints, such editorial matters
will not receive a lot of attention for some time.
<P>As to the technical issues, after only 10 days,
we are still in the up-hill phase of the review.
I expect the technical issues to be largely stable in another
week or two.
<H2>Review and Publication Process</H2>
<P>The WWW technology will probably be moderated by an international
consortium in the future, but since the need for this document
is immediate, it will be published as an SGML Open Technical
Report. An SGML Open technical committee is forming.
Contact Dan Connolly <CODE><connolly@hal.com></CODE>,
or Yuri Rubinsky, <CODE><yuri@sq.com></CODE> for details.
<P>The document will be publicly available throughout the review
process.
<P>Ron Daniel <CODE><rdaniel@acl.lanl.gov></CODE> has
voluntered to maintain <A
HREF="http://www.acl.lanl.gov/HTML/html-archive.subject-index.html">an
archive of the review comments</A>
<P>I maintain <A HREF="notes/ReviewTopics.html">a WIT-style (Topic/Proposal/Argument)
view of the comments</A>.
<P>To prevent duplicate comments on similar issues,
<STRONG>I reserve the right to publicly redistribute all comments
sent to me regarding the HTML 2.0 spec.</STRONG>
I will use discretion in making old messages available without
the expressed consent of the author, but in the future,
consent will be implictly given just by commenting on the HTML
2.0 document. If you have sent me comments on the HTML 2.0 document
that you don't want made public, please let me know.
<H2><A HREF="HTML_TOC.html">The Contents as Hypertext</A></H2>
<P>Note that this hypertext is subject to change without notice.
<H2>The whole document as of the 19940613 release</H2>
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="HTML.txt">Plain text</A>
<LI><A HREF="HTML.ps.Z">Postscript</A>
<LI><A HREF="html-spec.tar.gz">Compressed tar file of all the
.html nodes</A>
</UL>
<H4>Mosaic Technical Support Note</H4>
<P>To download the postscript and/or tar file:
<OL>
<LI>Choose "Load To Local Disk" from the Options Menu
<LI>Select the desired anchor
<LI>Mosaic transfers the bits, prompts for a filename
<LI>Enter a filename to save the data
<LI>Don't forget to turn of "Load To Local Disk"
</OL>
<H2>Related Materials</H2>
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="notes/PubHistory.html">Publication History</A>
<LI><A HREF="ChangeLog">Detailed Changed Log</A>
<LI><A HREF="../html-test/README.html">HTML Test Suite</A>
<LI><A HREF="../drafts/html-direction.html"><CITE>Toward Closure
on HTML</CITE> </A>
(see also <A
HREF="http://gummo.stanford.edu/html/hypermail/www-talk-1994q2.subject-index.html">the
www-talk mailing list archive</A> for responses)
<LI><A HREF="../drafts/html-design.html">Design Notebook</A>
</UL>
<ADDRESS>Daniel W. Connolly<BR> connolly@hal.com<BR> $Id:
index.html,v 1.13 1994/06/16 19:37:39 connolly Exp $</ADDRESS>
</BODY>