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Re: [xml-dev] XHTML 2.0 and the death of XLink and XPointer?
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In a message dated 09/08/2002 19:18:22 GMT Daylight Time, MDubinko@cardiff.com writes:
I don't think it's fair to infer any W3C "direction" from an initial draft;
it's just a Working Group doing their job.
Hi Micah,
First let me say that I think it is a great idea to have the first draft of XHTML 2.0 out to public view early. Much better than the developer community being presented with a semi-fait accompli.
I don't think it is unreasonable to infer a direction from the XHTML 2.0 WD since that draft occurs in an ongoing context in relation to XLink. In a reply on this thread earlier today I cited Henry Thomson's response to my question about the future of XLink (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-xml-linking-comments/2002JanMar/0034.html).
At that time (March 2002) there was no (publicly available) future work plan for the XLink WG some seven months after the XLink REC was published. As far as I know there is still no publicly available work plan for the XLink WG. An ongoing absence of a future work plan (when contrasted with the clearer situation for other specs) leads to the not unreasonable hypothesis that the future of XLink was (and is), at best, unclear.
With the continuing silence from W3C (at a time point 3 months after, as I understand it, the XLink WG's charter expired) about any future for XLink and the appearance of a seeming alternate approach to hyperlinking for at least some XML document I don't think it is unreasonable to pose the questions that I did.
The questions were posed so that I could be clearer in my own mind about what W3C's intentions for XLink are ... and perhaps the questions would also help to focus W3C's thoughts (through the TAG?) on how this area should be approached.
There is another spec from the HTML group, not yet published, that deals
with many of your questions.
If that was in the public domain I might not have had to ask the questions. :)
Is there an approximate timetable for the public availability of that document?
Background materials at:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Jun/0116.html
And response at:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2002Jul/0158.html
I read Steven Pemberton's email which you cite to indicate that there is a substantive problem here with XLink. On that generality we seem to agree.
However, it did seem to me that at least one point he raises may be a red herring. He comments that "it was too clumsy to use a different namespace" but isn't XHTML 2.0 using a new and different namespace for the href attribute in XHTML 2.0. It surely can't be in any existing HTML/XHTML namespace since it will be permitted on elements where in HTML/XHTML 1.x the href attribute is not allowed.
If, on the other hand, he meant that using the XLink namespace (as opposed to the XHTML 2.0 namespace) is "too clumsy" then isn't that reinforcing the possibility that at least some factions (for want of a better term) in W3C want to limit/diminish/dispose of XLink? I guess the alternate possibility of wanting to see XLink improved also exists.
On XHTML-L Shane McCarron indicated, as a personal viewpoint, that he anticipated XPointer being supported in XHTML 2.0. It would have been good for the (seeming) fact that fragment identifier in XHTML 2.0 is an open issue to be stated more clearly in the WD (I, of course, could have missed it).
Given the context I cited earlier in this email, are you or anyone else able to answer the question I originally posed in March: "What are W3C's plans for XLink"?
And in the narrower context of XLink versus "HLink" is this an appropriate approach having two "standards" providing essentially similar functionality?
Regards
Andrew Watt
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