Re: .gif and NetScape Tage

greg@afs.com
Wed, 8 Feb 95 12:11:23 -0500


I first posited:

>Ultimately, the market decides the standards. I think Netscape is

>going to win this battle by the time the next official HTML document
>gets produced. We NEXTSTEPers might as well be ready for it.

J.R. "Bob" Grillo (the Slackmeister) consulted Kibo and then informed us:

>It's even worse than this. The definition of "HTML" is going to

>continue to change for some time to come.

Finally Casey ("Don't Call Me 'Babe'") took his turn at bat:

>I propose that full SGML compliance be the goal we strive for.
>After all, HTML and all derivatives are only instances of SGML.

Casey has the right idea. It's not clear to me why we, as a NEXTSTEP standards group,
should care about a specific, "official" language implementation. It might be worth
referencing the established standards as a minimum baseline, but there's no point limiting
the top end. Ultimately, users can force their document editor to create any tag they wish
to use, unless the editor forces them to pick from a list (a BAD idea). And ultimately, it is
the browser author's responsibility to decide how feature-rich to make their product.

I think this topic is best either (1) ignored, or (2) referenced only as baseline for minimum
acceptable functionality. There is nothing NEXTSTEP-specific about it.

greg