2. Promote those standards
> So the W3C has this swell piece of software that let's me, a web developer
> check out how my code is running for *their* new standards. But since I
> have a OS that let's say 51% of the people developing web sites use I can't
> run their software. They (to paraphrase) can't be bothered. I am supposed
It's not we cannot be bothered. It's that we don't have the resources and
knowledge to do the port. The Windows port (from Unix) already took around
2 man*year. We cannot afford to spend more resources on this. As explained
before, we ported to Windows to get some feedback. Remember that amaya
is a testbed for new proposal and had been used for this purpose in the last
(nearly) three year for things like image map, CSS, various version of HTML,
MathML, DOM, ...
I guess you are wrong on the focus of this tool. This is not a validator,
(there is one at validator.w3.org), though it can be used as one. It's a
testbed. A testbed is by essence an experimental piece of code, and you
basically shouldn't expect it to fullfill the expectations you have on a
commercially supported piece of software ;-). For example it doesn't work
on your platform. It also crashes a lot on Tim Berner's Lee machine (NT).
That's acceptable since we removed the "reference software" sticker on
any of our code more than one year ago. It's beta testbed code. Basically
it's a bit like Mozilla, you have the code, you can play with it, we prepackage
for a few platforms, but there is no guarantee.
Now you can argue why we did port from Unix to Windows instead of spending
our effort porting on the Mac (remember we don't have the resources to do
both, and you can still candidate to do it, see my previous post). Simply
the feedback we got on the first Unix version was "Were is the Windows
port ?". This was unanimous both from the public mailing-list and from
the members organization. So the answer is simply "FeedBack" ! Like anybody
else in this situation we looked at the potential users and selected the
most asked for platform, not that we liked that, we had to hire a new
programmer since nobody was really Windows aware in the group.
So basically when you're saying we're MS lackey (c.f. the title of
this stupid thread), you're simply unfair and extremely biased.
> to enter a time machine, undo my graphics training and experience and learn
> to write code to assemble their source because me and 51% of the other
> developers don't count.
This is a testbed, used by developpers of Web applications or Web standards.
The target is not primarily Web site designer, understood ?
> This is basically Daniel's and I'm assuming since no disclaimer was noted
> the W3C's position. And I say this is completely wrong thinking. I would
> like to know how many Mac's are at the W3C? Because Daniel likes to throw
> around the 3% number, there probably aren't many. However even going with
Were did I throw a number ? Except the half dozen request in 3 year which
as far as I trust my memory is a good estimate. Now if have have to add a
disclaimer to every piece of mail I send to FoRK, this is *really* not about
"Friends", and again I really want to be unsubscribed ...
> the 51% of developers rate that still is a majority of developers
> developing content for the other 95% to look at. If the W3C actually
> believes that their mission is to create standards for the 95% of the
> lookers then I submit they are completely lost. It is my and other web
> developers responsibility to develop a web site for the 95% lookers. It is
> their responsibility to develop standards for me and others to author to.
> By not even making an effort to (and that is really what it comes down to
> isn't it?) bring this software onto the platform that 51% of the developers
Repeat after me again : This is a testbed and it's intent is not to provide
the ultimate authoring environment for platform X, Y, or Z ...
Repeat again: this is not intended to replace the existing commercial
authoring environment but a framework to test new ideas by implementation.
> use, you have to question their seriousness as an open standards body.
> Hence my term MSW3C.
Most of the IETF protocols have been developped on Unix machine and
they had a long track of do doing the test mainly in the BSD stack. So
to use your argumentation you should really question their seriousness
as an open standard body and call them MSIETF. Humm ... interesting !
> At the very least the W3C can put out a press release asking interested Mac
> developers to contact them to bring their source to the Mac community, then
> once a list is assembled distribute their source to those software
> developers with the understanding that it will be released. It isn't that
> hard.
The source is available for anybody, with the most liberal licence
possible, the mailing-list is open. The announce of the souce code
availability was the main item on W3C's front page for a full month
two years ago. Do we really need a PR now to tell the Mac community
that Amaya sources are available ??? That's gross ... Do you really need
a PR to do OpenSource development in the Mac community? I should suggest
that to the Gnome project hacker list, "Hey guys let's make a PR to
start a port on Macs". More seriously I sincerely think that the actual
point is that there is not much interest from the Mac community in Amaya.
You may express interest, but as noted you can run it in an emulation box,
or using a PC laying around or Linux on PPC.
As noted previously FoRK is probably not the best place to foster
interest on an Amaya for Mac port, as you pointed out it's perfectly
right and legal for you to do so, it's just IMHO irrelevant and
probably extremely boring for the large majority of the (remaining)
FoRK readers (I expect that most of them have already added the
title in their kill file).
I also think that the only point you tried to make in your post is
that W3C is Mac unfriendly. IIRC you already raised the sRGB topic on
FoRK some months ago and after getting some competent people in the
discussion (again IIRC Chris Lilley) it was clear that you were completly
wrong. Could you relax a bit and have a look at Mozilla instead ?
If you really want to start a port on Mac, send mail to your Mac
community using whatever channel you're used to and also post the
announcement on the Amaya mailing-list. I don't think you need a PR
for that.
Daniel
P.S. And I *really* hate feeling that what I post on FoRK may be used
unfriendly to foster anti-W3C feelings in the Mac community, that
SUCKS !!!
-- Daniel.Veillard@w3.org | W3C MIT/LCS NE43-344 | Today's Bookmarks : Tel : +1 617 253 5884 | 545 Technology Square | Linux, WWW, rpm2html, Fax : +1 617 258 5999 | Cambridge, MA 02139 USA | badminton, Kaffe, http://www.w3.org/People/W3Cpeople.html#Veillard | HTTP-NG and Amaya.