On Sat, 9 May 2009, Manu Sporny wrote: > > > > For rel-license, the HTML5 spec defines the value to apply to the > > content and not the page as a whole. This is a recent change to match > > actual practice and I will be posting about this shortly. > > Hmm, yes - after re-reading the definitions, they do differ... > especially in how the hAudio Microformat uses rel="license". I find the > HTML5 one to be very problematic. Microformats rel="license" is better, > and the RDFa use of rel="license" is even better (I can go into the > reasoning if those on the list are curious).
The definition in HTML5 is just a description of how it's used in practice. It's not what I'd design if I had a choice. However, there's not much point defining something that doesn't match the reality of the situation. > For example, in HTML5, how do you express 20 items on a page, each with > separate licenses? How do you differentiate a page that has 3 primary > topics, each with a separate license? You can't, currently. Can you provide a sample of such a page? > In short - what's the purpose of rel="license" if a machine can't use it > to help the person browsing identify important sections of a page? rel=license as it stands today is useful only (as far as I can tell) for people searching the Web for pages whose main content (e.g. the photo on a Flickr page, the text of a blog post on a blog post's permalink, etc) is licensed under a particular license identified by URI. > Afterall, it's only machine readable, isn't it? What's the sense in > having rel="license" if a machine can't be sure of the section of the > page to which it applies? Generally speaking, search engines are pretty competent at distinguishing the page's main content from ancillary content such as style sheets or navigation links. > More importantly, if you see this as an issue, why don't you see the > semantic difference between rel="alternate"[3] in HTML4 and > rel="alternate"[4] in HTML5 as being an issue? That case is even worse, > exactly the same string - entirely different semantics. HTML5's definition, again, matches what actual implementations and author usage is. HTML5 isn't trying to be compatible with HTML4, it's trying to be compatible with legacy content. > > You would have to ask them. I tend not to argue with implementor > > feedback. If they tell me they won't do something, I don't tell them > > to do it. > > I would expect the primary editor for a web specification to understand > the reason that every single one of their implementors refuse to > implement a technique that they use elsewhere in their products. I believe I do, but I wouldn't want to put words in their mouth on such controversial topics. > I'd love to ask eacho of them why it is perceived as difficult and > discuss possible solutions. A public e-mail would be best so that we can > discuss on this list, but a private e-mail would be fine as well. So > please, if your organization has decided to not resolve prefixes in > attribute values, please send me an e-mail. > > After two weeks, I'll check back in with the mailing list to report on > the number of responses I received and a summary of the reasoning > (anonymized, of course) for the benefit of this community. Did you receive any responses? -- Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
