Re: HTML and IETF
yuri@oclc.org
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 94 21:56:50 EDT
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From: yuri@oclc.org
To: Multiple recipients of list <html-ig@oclc.org>
Subject: Re: HTML and IETF
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Tim writes:
>
> |From: "Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@hal.com>
>
> |In message <9407051525.AA04336@www3.cern.ch>, Tim Berners-Lee writes:
>
> Well, now I have had a direct message from Phil Mackapetris, IETF
> chair, saying they would welcome WWW standards work in the IETF.
> I think what was wrong was that the IIIR group (and URI to a
> certain extent) started out with the charter to invent the
> Intergrated Internet Information Architecture. This III was
> clearly in a way a reinvent of WWW, so it didn't help WWW.
> To work on WWW is quite a different thing. The WWW groups
> (HTML, HTTP, or just one WWW) would work specifically on WWW
> protocols and formats. Those taking part would be WWW
> developers, not just droppers-in.
>
I take it that Tim is NOT concerned that the III is potentially
a threat of some kind to the WWW, and that he's comfortable that
working under the umbrella of someone who may meanwhile be developing
such an architecture makes sense. Accordingly, it seems sensible to
me.
> |>Who would be able to come to meetings at the next IETF
> |>in Toronto July 25-29?
>
> Sounds like Murray would have no problem,
> Dan and Dave R are in the "if everyone else does"
> state, Phill Hallam-Baker also.
> I will be there anyway.
> Any more support from this group?
>
Regrettably, I'll be at the first HyTime Conference that week in Vancouver
and won't be able to take part. (It seems a particularly aggravating
coincidence since international meetings so rarely take place in our
home town!)
However, Liam Quin, who runs the HoTMetaL project will, I hope, be
able to take part on my/our behalf. I'll have a chance (and the
archives) to get him up to speed.
I may have missed some part of the conversation (and if so I apologise)
but I'm curious as to whether the meeting here is an opportunity to
tell the IETF what's going on (and therefore could be attended by a
handful of people representing the work) or is really an opportunity
to all meet as a group and perhaps nail it down completely. (Or nearly :-)
> Basically, I suggest charter:
>
> To produce standards for the HyperText MarkUp Language
> used in the world Wide Web.
>
I wonder if the use of the word "standards" in the sentence is
a big ambiguous and might be refined as something like:
[Also it seems that people that we meet are also thinking of
using it in other places beyond the Web. For instance, if we're
able to subsume the markup needed for the blind into HTML3.0
then it will serve non-Web browsers just as well...]
To standardise usage of the HyperText MarkUp Language
for the World Wide Web and for developers of software
supporting HTML applications.
> Milestones:
>
> HTML Levels 1 and 2 -- descriptive specs.
> * Draft for discussion
> * RFC release as proposed standard
>
> Information RFC on principles
>
I would like to add publication as an SGML Open Technical Report
as well.
I'm sorry that I haven't previously had a chance to report on the
SGML Open Board meeting last week. Here goes:
SGML Open welcomes any opportunity to be helpful to this group,
in whatever way we can. We have booked meeting facilities for
technical and marketing meetings August 18 through 20 at the Xerox
Corporate Conference Center in Leesburg, Virginia USA. If these
facilities can be of use, we're happy to make them available.
(Presumably if there's a working meeting planned for three weeks
earlier in Toronto, there's not much point ...)
We'd be happy to contribute -- indeed strictly speaking that's
happening already with contributions from our member organizations,
HAL, OCLC/IDI, SoftQuad, [Am I missing any? Apologies, if so.] -- and
to publish in whatever forms are useful. If it's appropriate also to
publicize this work, we can help with that...let the world know that there
are formal standards/specifications for HTML, that it has an
on-going assured life, that a large number of SGML vendors will
support it, and so on. Whatever it takes for fence-sitters
to believe this is long-lived technology!
The SGML Open Board recognizes that because of the timing there's
little we can do with respect to HTML 2.0 except offer to host a
meeting and/or publish results. However, we are keen to be as
involved as make sense in The Next Generation, the 3.0 work.
I would propose that the committee be struck as wearing both hats:
An IETF working group AND an SGML Open technical committee. I believe
each would serve useful purposes and certainly there is a great deal
of flexibility available from the SGML Open side to have this
liaison be as fruitful as possible in support of the committee work.
Yuri
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