>Many thanks for the reply on this subject. Summarizing, is it fair to say
>that W30 will be able to work more quickly than an IETF working group
>for HTTP, but that the IETF working group will probably arrive at a
>standard that is (at some level) compatible with the W30 efforts?
I think it is fair to say that the W3O working group will be in large part
comprised of IETF type people and that a lot of W3O people will be poping
up in IETF contexts.
At the end of the day aomeone somewhere will draw up an organisation chart
formalising the relationships between all these various bodies with liasons
etc etc after which we can all ignor it and get back to work.
I don't think the IETF are especially keen to create a second, incompatible
standard for HTTP etc. Nor is W3O. So long as the IETF is happy that the
spec is sound and is not a trojan horse for proprietary interests or falls
foul of any other IETF naughty then I can't see them insisting that we
make derranged changes to the spec that break existing browsers. But then again
we will have to wait 'n see. If the president of the IETF were to wake up
with a horse head in his bed then I might be concerned that things might turn
nasty in future. Until then I think that we should assume that nobody involved
wants diverngent standards.
I'm not speaking for W30 by the way, only Tim can do that.
Phill H-B