My last on IE6 and XML

[Joshua Allen <joshuaa@microsoft.com>]

A. Allowing users to look at "broken" XML files in the browser without 
   fatally failing, when those documents contain low-range ASCII
characters.

B. Failing when users try to view XML in the browser, when there are  
   characters above 0x10000.

OK, here are the facts as I think they stand:

1. There are two conformance bugs in IE that are in discussion.  Nobody
is questioning that these are bugs, and they don't have to be "mistakes"
to classify as bugs.  It is also worth noting that these bugs do NOT
exist in Microsoft's "official" XML parser, MSXML.

2. 100% conformance should be everyone's goal.

3. There are many reasons that conformance bugs exist.  Deliberately
breaking interop is certainly one possibility, and I have tried to make
the case why other motivations make more sense in this situation.  But I
also think it's a waste of time to argue about what someone else was
*really* thinking.

4. Not all conformance bugs are equal.  All products have conformance
bugs, and they should all be fixed JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE CONFORMANCE
BUGS.  But beyond that, it is nice to be able to show factually how
these impact users, because that is a good way to motivate people to fix
the bugs and set priorities on which ones to tackle first.  David
Carlisle has given an example that users presumably cannot use MathML
within IE6 because of bug "B".  There is also evidence that fixing bug
"A" could have positive *and* negative impact on users (unless it was
fixed perhaps in the way that Julian suggested).  I appreciate these
sorts of examples and can forward them on.

Thanks,
Joshua