HTML BOF

There were 58 attendees. Dan Connolly and David Ragget had expressed regret at not being able to attend.

Paper documents distributed at the meeting were the draft charter of the proposed working group, and the current (of July 21, dated July 31!) version of the HTML specification.

Presentation

History

• The original HTML spec was kept on the web only, and edited by the author in response to discussion on the net.
• Much work was later put in by Dan Connolly who cleared up its relationship to SGML and tested it.
• An Internet Draft was produced.
• The draft was broght up in the IIIR working group which deliberated on the fact that it was existing practice not designed within the IETF. The alternatives of an informatinal status and proposed standards status were discussed without resolution. The matter was put to the Area Directors who proposed it be put to the IESG who did not come up with an answer.
• The Internet Draft expired.
• David Ragget of HP Labs Bristol UK put in a lot of editorial work on the document, including a lot of the new features which were in common discussion on the net. It was not clear whether the result of this should in factbe a rigid superset of HTML, and it was known as HTMLPlus in the meantime.
• A group of vendors wishing to World-Wide Web compatible tools demanded a quotable specification for HTML. A informal HTML Implementors Group (HTML-IG) was formed.
• HTML-IG met during the WWW94 conference in Geneva, which itself also contained an HTML workshop. This produced a useful understanding of the feature sets into which new developments could be grouped.
• Paul Mockapetris, IETF chair, encouraged the persuance of WWW standards in the IETF context, and at the last moment the present BOF was organized.
• Karen Mulrow, colleague of Dan Connolly, edited the HTML spec of existing practice to increase its legibility producing the draft distributed at the meeting.
• An informal meeting of HTML-IG was held yesterday (25 July) at the offices of SCO, Toronto. A few technical but mostly editorial change were proposed to the spec of existing practice. The essential points of a draft working group charter were drawn up.

Proposed Charter

• Describe before developing new features
• Base spec on existing practice
• Express the relationship of hTML to: URI, MIME, SGML, HTTP.
• Define conformance levels
• Define transition possibilities and compatibilities between versions and levels

Levels of HTML

Level 0

Mandatory. Headings, lists, anchors, etc. (Provides the least differences in presentation between platforms.)

Level 1

Images, Emphasis (Can confuse if used for semantics not evident also from text)

Level 2

Forms. (Require greater implementation effort)

Level 3

Not existing practice. Tables, figures.(& other effects breaking normal text flow.)

Level 4

Mathematical formulae

Discussion

• The IESG now had policy for incorporating existing practice on the IETF standards track. It would see whether the issues addressed had wider implications than the existing applications, and if so would broaden the discussion.
• The specification should describe WWW's use of relative URIs, as they were not defined in the URL specification (which was in a final stage of discussion in the morning).
• There is a new www-security list which has just been created and has around 300 members after 3 days. If the kernel of interested people who are willing to work together can be found, then a working group on the issues would be useful, There two independent implementations of secure additions to HTTP. [subscription requets to www-security-request@ns1.rutgers.edu]
• The WG charter should mention that the spec to be produced should mention the relationship (for example the mapping between equivalent concepts) between HTML and HyTime.
• The charter should be as clear as the transparency about the guidelines for the working group.

Ed Levinson <ELevinson@Accurate.com> mentioned an effort underway to investigate the conventions for distributing SGML as a MIME type. It was pointed out that this involves resolution of identifieres used in references, and therefore has an impact on URIs. A mailing list exists for the discussion, and a BOF is proposed for the next IETF. To subscribe to list, mail mime-sgml-request@infoods.unu.edu.