Re: Last Call: <draft-holsten-about-uri-scheme-06.txt> (The 'about' URI scheme) to Proposed Standard

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The question is what "necessary" means in terms of willful violations of specs. There are at least three cases I can understand, with different implications:

There are cases where the existing spec, while it claims to apply, actually is a bad idea. Then we need to document the problem and the solution, and make sure the community agrees to the change. This happens. It usually results in an "updates" indication in the new spec, so folks know that the old one is not complete.

There are cases where a spec is documenting existing practice. IIt can document that practice is different from the spec. It has to do so while carefully being clear that the standards should apply, and that the practice does not match. It is often useful to discuss the reasons for the mismatch.

Then there are cases where folks are attempting to standardizea space that has been unclear, under-specified, or a mess, and much of the space does not comply with the specs. That is NOT a good reason to standardize non-compliant behavior.

I can not tell which of those you mean when you say that "Willful violations of other specs where necessary are acceptable."

Yours,
Joel


On 6/16/2011 5:20 AM, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
On 2011-06-16 11:14, Julian Reschke wrote:
On the other hand, you're trying to define a URI scheme. If it's
handling conflicts with the base URI spec, that's a bug. Period. You may
*document* that some UAs have this bug, but you can't change it to be
not a bug.

Theoretical purity is not a priority for the specs I edit. Wilful
violations of other specs where necessary are acceptable.

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