Re: The remaining issues list

Albert Lunde (Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu)
Wed, 22 Mar 95 08:35:07 EST

> I know that in order for HTML to become a HyTime application a lot needs
> to be accomplished especially regarding entity management. People
> keep saying that there is the backward compatibility problem.
> I understand this point of view but I do not think this is such a big issue.
>
> There are plenty of HTML 1 and HTML 2 documents all around the world.
> Some people want to make them HTML 3 with no effort and that's what
> they call the backward compatibility requirement.

For "Some people" I'd read 99% of the WWW users. We should consider
the "competition": whatever one may think of Netscape, to date they
have added their extensions in a way that usually does not totally
break documents/software ignorant of them. If we define a "standard"
for HTML 3.0 that is cumbersome migrate to, the market may
vote with its feet for something else. I don't want a standard that
needlessly increases fragmentation in the web.

I think that proposals to make HTML 3.0 other than a superset
of HTML 2.0 should make a strong case for actual benifits
coming from the change.

(I'm more willing to see modest changes like removal of some
depreciated features (or adding more usage to depreciated)
or technical adjustments to the DTD than I am to endorse
something that would break common usage of basic tags.)

-- 
    Albert Lunde                      Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu