Re: [whatwg] New URL Standard from Anne van Kesteren on 2012-09-24 ([e-mail] from September 2012)

[Ian Hickson <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, 22 Oct 2012, James M Snell wrote:
>
> Is there a list of issues that you and Anne are working from for this? 
> If there indeed is a need to update the URI/IRI RFC's to address 
> specific problems I'm sure it wouldn't take much effort to draft up an 
> I-D. I'd be more than willing to help out with such an effort.

See the spec. He's documented what needs to be done. The big one that he 
hasn't done yet is defining "valid URL" (the "Writing" section), which is 
the bulk of what STD 66 and the IRI RFC do.


> > Maybe the IETF should consider why Anne isn't doing it in the IETF.
>
> Indeed. Good question: Anne, is there are particular reason why you 
> chose not to pursue this work as an I-D? Let's get that particular issue 
> resolved.

(I don't think Anne is on any of the cc'ed mailing lists.)

I can't speak for Anne, but having experienced the IETF via the hybi work, 
my own opinion is that the main reason I wouldn't work with the IETF is 
that the community these days values consensus over technical value and 
running code, and the culture in the IETF doesn't value the kind of 
specification style that IMHO leads to better interop. For example, this 
very thraed -- we're having to argue to convince people that defining 
error handling is even a valuable thing to do. I have no interest in 
attempting to get anything done in an environment where that's the level 
at which the conversation starts.

Note that this isn't the only work recently that has gone from the IETF to 
the WHATWG. For example, the MIME Sniffing specification, which was 
originally in the HTML spec, was moved to the IETF by Adam Barth, who has 
done other work in the IETF successfully (e.g. Cookies). But in the end, 
Adam gave up on specifying MIME sniffing in the IETF and moved it out, and 
now it's found a home at the WHATWG:

   http://mimesniff.spec.whatwg.org/

The character encodings registry at IETF/IANA has also recently been, to 
some extent, suplanted by work at the WHATWG after failed attempts at 
getting the specs and registries at the IETF/IANA into better shape:

   http://encoding.spec.whatwg.org/

I spoke to Anne briefly and he pointed me to:

   http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/IETF

...which gives a very brief synopsis of why he's given up on the IETF.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'