Editor's note: These minutes have not been edited. HTML Working Group Meeting, Monday, March 4th, 1996 Eric Sink welcomed people to the meeting, and introduced Area Director John Klinsen. JK: If the practice in industry is broken, we should be leading; else solidifying behind them. Currently, though, not a healthy situation. What purpose does this WG, or a successor, serve? 1) Forget about HTML in the IETF 2) Numbered versions may be hopeless 3) Can we do feature-based discussions? (after implementation) And then leave numbered versions to 'someone else' (the 'applicability statement' approach in IETF-speak (i.e. Chinese menu)). Parting shot: if not tied to market, the WG has no role at IETF. ES: No formal agenda. "This working group as it lives cannot go on". He's got a new .sig from Cosby: "The key to failure is trying to please everyone" Open comment forum. Question from the audience, unidentified: What's the current charter? ES: Hasn't been revised since group formation. As written, asks WG to lead the standard. "I humbly assert that this charter has not been fulfilled." [Charter read] Brian Behlendorf: What is the role the W3C wants to play in HTML standardization, and how does that work with the IETF model? Dave Raggett: The W3C's role is to lead the development of HTML in coordination with vendors. W3C can provide first-pass collaboration on standards docs to hand off to the IETF. Ted Hardie: the real question is interoperability. DSR: The vendors, whose fault this is, are very interested in maintaining interoperability. JK: W3C seems to not be doing better than us here. The W3C, though, has charter to go off ahead of the market, which this WG is not currently defined to do. Murray Altheim: Fundamental question is, must HTML continue to be specifed as a DTD? This is not current practice, and if both orgs are not requiring DTDs and SGML compliance. If only 5% of docs validate, we're irrelevant to begin with. DSR: AFAIK, there is no pressure from the people I am working with to move away from 'HTML-as-SGML-application' MA: pragmatically, the industry is not moving towards valid documents. Dirk vanGulik: even if people buy DTDs, what about people who don't take the organizational infrastructure that an SGML system provides. Alex Hopmann: the fundamental problem is describing what is being done [even reverse eng!] To some degree, we're going to have to go do these vendors' work for them. Larry Masinter: I'm reacting negatively to the assertion that vendors aren't "here" and don't participate. The main point is that we have made some progress on particular features: I18N, etc. We've also had real difficulty with numbered versions -- but applicability statements might work. Three poll questions: What results to record? DSR: I suggest that it might be very relevant to have a new WG later, in 6 mos or so. Paul Hoffman: how much W3C work is going to be open to view in the next few months? How can we advise people on proposals by reference to old mailing lists, etc. DSR: we make WDs freely available. Smaller groups may choose their own policy for disclosure. PH: examples? DSR: INSERT, stylesheets. ES: introduces the W3C "Editorial Review Board", and now is speaking as ERB chair, not W3C chair: The W3C wishes to state that they will take a leadership role, but not be a standards body. W3C has actually got all the people talking to each other, to develop new *specs*, not standards. They are not claiming the same bredth of support and review the IETF could. One of the big str. of the IETF is that everyone knows how the process works, and some vendors ignore it; the W3C is a vague process, but does work. AH: Since the W3C is slow to contribute to I-D and list archives, it's easy for people to not know what's going on. BB: The real problem is that we have a very piss-poor platform for the evolution of HTML today, and that is server manipulation of data based on the HTTP "User-Agent" field. ES: It may be a good thing to not have a WG for 6 mos, and find how much we needed it. LM: In my view, text/html is only one of many internet media types that we ship around. People traffic in proprietary media types all the time... (examples: PostScript, PDF, GIF) We generally understand vendor-specific formats. HTML has taken on a unique role that IETF might standardize an internet media type. MA: The W3C has the vendors behind them, they will be the prime specification house, where they will dump specs in our laps. If anyone believes that true public discussion can happen AFTER the vendors have agreed, that's delusional. I'm not sure there's a dialogue there, and I don't want us as a rubber stamp. Josh Cohen: if we don't a WG, how do we contain vendor fragmentation? TH: As a content provider, I see that W3C is anxious to move HTML forward with vendors. This group has a role as a forum for publishers, to test 'cores' and interop testing. Keith Moore: Here's my list of what we can do: the vendors have incentives not to announce until shipping, etc and we need to counteract such messes. 1) document existing practice 2) recommend containment policy for vendor messes 3) where there are multiple solutions, offer criteria 4) sanity check proposals in advance 5) feature profiles ES: The W3C is very interested in exactly that. ES: I'm hearing 2 purposes for this WG: 1) a front-end that leads HTML (may not be successful; tried this) 2) a back-end group, testing, standardizing, resolving conflicts MA: There's a third, version numbering (FPIs). We can't issue versions fast enough for vendors... we have a 2.0 dtd, an i18n dtd. If we use those as reference DTDs to build upon, and then come up with a modular way to add features, and negotiatie them. This issue is good work for us, and allows for healthy communication among all parties. Harald Alvestrand: Wait, IETF WGs have fixed issues, start and finish dates. The IETF does not have a mechanism for a permanent review board. Marc Hedlund: In addition to Althiem's versioning, guidelines for usage and design considerations. Stef(?): The obvious problem is the relationship between W3C and IETF. Where does the responsibility for failure lie -- can we unambiguously put the responsibility on the W3C -- they're getting paid to do it, and we're getting dragged around, and should be not be held resp. Pete Resnick: This is very odd: in the mail groups, we don't dictate to Eric Allman. We can be a [good housekeeping seal] to critique the practice. Create new feature-based groups to review W3C proposals, keep creating and destroying groups as we go. ES: WGs are supposed to end -- in fact it's a success to close one out. 2nd, WGs are VERY expensive! TH: One of the IETF/W3C problems is that W3C keeps quacking and won't say duck they do most of a standards body's work without having to clean up and ask for compliance -- the IETF can have much more open membership and take proposals from much more than vendors. We do have a very serious INTEROPERABILITY problem to be addressed. PH: A reasonable place for this WG to stop is to ratify a platform to experiment upon -- this is the story of successful standards. We need to come up with an extensible HTML base, and stop the WG. New WGs could form and go further, especially when 'bad' extentions come up. JK: Note that the consortium has said duck many times, just not in the presence of the IETF. Second, what exactly are you suggesting for a Base target. BB: 2.0 would not be a good base: it's not yet a good compound document standard. Tables, objects, I18N, some others needed, but some HTML 3.0 elements can be ditched. Example: math support, lots want it, but not all -- make math a media type of its own, which can be embedded. ES: Assert: the IETF cannot solve the interop problem, nor can the W3C. The list of people who care about HTML is vastly longer than for almost any other IETF issue. BB: Without interoperability, what good are standards? LM: This WG has to complete the work in progress and close: style sheets, tables, insert, I18N, and converge all of these together and maybe a modular mechanism for adding extensions. KM: What's done we should finish, and give ourselves one more meeting, and that's it. JK: E-mail has as large a consumer base as the Web. If the difference is the rate of change in this market, then we have to accomodate this. ES: "The general level of cluelessness among people who care about HTML is astronomical" PH: Well, perhaps people who are offended by the lack of standards should go beat on the people paid to work on it. We don't have 3.0 frameworks, etc. If the W3C screws up, we can return. MH: Well, not all extention proposals emanate from W3C... KM: Trying to develop new standards in a group this size is not gonna work. DM: Critical need: we need a conditional in HTML. We know "User-Agent" doesn't work, so how about client-side processing. Roy Fielding: What's wrong in HTTP neg, is that it assumes that there's a way to label content -- text/html is meaningless. The ideal use of this group is to label HTML, and I like Murray's start in this area. MA: If we can use the public text identifier to indicate feature, status, and owner, and reuse auch strings, that would be good progress. ES: I want this to also be a low-risk WG. I don't want to push forward with a possibly-irrelevant proposal. JK: People want something: 1) either a rigid version number or 2) feature lists. ES: Who out there are content providers? PH: There is great interest among server vendors to compete on features. There is strong commercial demand to follow standards, so the feature list can get longer, and some products tick off more of them. I think this is lower risk than you think. ES: 1) close this group 2) create a new group on negot. (a bounded, finite problem!) MH: Let's look at existing systems for content negotiation: Insert/embed, frames, etc are already doing conditional text. Can we learn from those examples, perhaps use their syntax for a more general conditional HTML framework? LM: HTTP feature set negotiation is needed for many internet media types. TIFF parameters, even general ones: color, res, printer res, etc. There are *many* non-DTD feature sets: color, URI types supported, etc -- not grammatically limited by media type. BB: Yet it is a hallmark for well-designed media types that they themselves degrade gracefully. Example: GIF89a animations which appear as regular gifs in browsers which support GIF but not animated GIF. HTML should be like this. MA: What about a new WG on feature set negotiation? ES: we could drive through a close-up of this group. This is a charter upgrade to doing a PS, perhaps. finish-what-we've-started will take a lot of effort. HA: take this Thursday slot and do two things 1) Feature-negotiation BOF-like discussions 2) Triage on current tasks. Triage slides for the "htmlfinishwhatwestarted" group - to obtain a base HTML core and close the WG [On each subject, much discussion took place, which was hard to take down as easily... the summary is below] Internationalization (existing I18N proposal): YES Object/Embed/Applet: Wait for W3C to release spec they are happy with, if non-controversial, then YES, otherwise punt. Tables: YES Stylesheet Embedding proposal: No resolution. No hope that debate about "Style" attribute could cease. Let W3C coordinate vendors in this area for interoperability. Style sheet syntax is out of scope. Form File Upload: YES (draft spec well on its way to RFC, implemented) Client-Side Imagemaps: (Eric added it to the list but crossed it out. Discussion about how resistance to proposed spec was more political than technological - no resolution) Specifically tabled: security considerations (sec-html) REL, REV attribute defn's Frames (listed in a sub-frame :-) ES: Look, the so-far-unnamed vendors are Netscape & Microsoft, and they most want to work W3C BB: Object is *essential* to a credible base standard - basis of a real compound document architecture. Terry Allen moves that security and REL and REV be reserved, but not standardized. HA: If there is no open document of the semantics of some feature, then it is a candidate for deletion from the spec. Concluded, to be continued Thursday. ###################################################################### HTML Working Group Meeting, Thursday, March 7th, 1996 Chaired by Harald Alvestrand (Eric Sink not present) (Minutes not as complete as last meeting's) More discussion about Murray Altheim's FPI proposal - "we need to solve the naming problem". Larry Masinter: Once we have a true conditional HTML system, use HTTP content negotiation to solve the backwards-compatibility problem by labelling conditional HTML "text/c-html" for example. Terry Allen would prefer to have conditionals switch on content outside the document rather than contain the conditionals alternate between content within the document itself. Harald proposes a chart of the solution space, with descriptions to be posted by March 15th: - DTD identification Murray to further revise draft document - Marked Sections Dan Connolly's post to HTML-WG in the previous few days can serve as the base, should be extended and illustrated, best of all implemented - Feature set ID What does the feature set domain look like? From a browser perspective. - Brian B. - Other conditional HTML systems Methods other than marked sections - why are they insufficient? Processing instructions? Multipart MIME-related? - David Morris - Server-side conditionals Properties of conditionalizing HTML on the server - Rohit Khare Harald: new working group on negotiation framework? Any volunteers? Brian B. to write charter proposal, but can not chair or edit drafts. Due 3/22. Discussion about proposals on the table for the WG ensued: The Hyperlink proposal, definitions for attributes to REL and REV. Terry: we need this. Brian: There are costs to standardizing this - it suddenly defines the "World Wide Web Link Model", something that seems out of scope of HTML Roy: This needs editorial work. No resolution. Internationalization (I18N) Larry: There are still unresolved issues about default form input encodings - what is the charset? Different if in POST or GET. (discussion about how Unicode is insufficient or unacceptible) Redefines RFC1766? Still more work needed. Embed/Insert/Object Confusion about the status of drafts - are there two? Has "insert" changed to "object"? "We can't make any progress since the W3C owns change control over the draft". Proposal made to remove draft from the archive - others agreed. Wait until W3C can produce another draft. File Upload Labeled Experimental in the RFC submission process - Netscape 2.0 does not implement completely - do we need a revision? Larry will update draft. Style No consensus. Meeting concluded. -- Eric W. Sink Manager, Program Management eric@spyglass.com I've got to find a way to teach my daughter the difference between fingerpainting and eating yogurt.