No, end users would use HTML when used in a web context, of course. But consider the two use-cases I mentioned:
* Adding translation links at the bottom of the legal code page. * Embedding the legal code into the deed in some manner. Both are HTML for the end user, but *different HTML*. So again, the point is that we need: 1) a *minimal* format to express the licenses themselves, and nothing more. 2) some tooling to take those licenses and format them as needed depending on context. And although we could write that tooling today with the HTML as-is, I would *much* rather write tools that know less about the license content. Dan On Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 10:57 AM, Greg Grossmeier wrote: > I guess the miscommunication here is: > what tooling will you build that needs to use something other than HTML > to display the license? > > What use-case do you have in mind, Dan? > > Greg > > <quote name="Dan Mills" date="2013-04-18" time="10:50:26 -0700"> > > Hi, > > > > The licenses still contain too much information which is not actually part > > of the licenses. Just open that link, view source, and behold. > > > > Of course we could parse it, but how would you decide what you can remove > > and what is part of the license? We need to minimize the amount of code > > that has such decisions embedded in it. > > > > Dan > > > > > > On Thursday, April 18, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Nathan Kinkade wrote: > > > > > All of the CC licenses validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. There are > > > a lot of really great XML parsers out there for manipulating such > > > documents. It would be trivial for us to clean up the HTML in the 4.0 > > > licenses to more minimal, using better nesting of id and classes so we > > > can use more accurate CSS selectors, and javascript can more reliably > > > navigate the DOM. I have already started this when I put together the > > > Draft 3 of the 4.0 licenses by giving a unique ID to each section and > > > subsection: > > > > > > http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/drafts/by-sa_4.0d3.html#s3a1B > > > > > > Nathan > > > > > > On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Dan Mills <d...@creativecommons.org > > > (mailto:d...@creativecommons.org)> wrote: > > > > Hi Bjorn & Maarten, > > > > > > > > I think you're missing a key point that Kat is making: the legal team is > > > > looking to change the pages that the licenses are on, to add translation > > > > links. I also know that they are thinking about ways of including the > > > > licenses inside the deeds, which would also require some changes to the > > > > license pages. > > > > > > > > So the point is not "what do you think of Markdown" in a vacuum, it's: > > > > what > > > > format can we store that contains only the absolute minimum to be > > > > considered to be part of the licenses, so that we can build tooling to > > > > style > > > > it appropriately depending on the context. > > > > > > > > We could obviously write tooling that takes the current HTML and > > > > transforms > > > > it, but such tooling would need to be highly content-aware: it would > > > > need to > > > > know which parts of the HTML file it can remove or change, and which > > > > ones it > > > > cannot. We likely can't eliminate that completely regardless of the > > > > format, > > > > but we should try to minimize it. > > > > > > > > Markdown seems pretty close to the minimal format that lets us express > > > > what > > > > we need. We could also continue to use HTML, but we'd need to use a > > > > minimal > > > > subset--not what we use now (which includes images, scripts, links not > > > > part > > > > of the license, etc). > > > > > > > > So, looking at your (Maarten's) four points with this in mind: > > > > > > > > 1. Both markdown and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) are markup > > > > languages, it seems silly to convert one markup language into another. > > > > > > > > > > > > This is not a criteria for choosing a format to use. > > > > > > > > > > > > 2. Adding markdown to the infrastructure creates extra dependancies on > > > > a conversion between markdown and HTML, one that will probably takes > > > > more skill and time than doing these licenses immediately in html > > > > > > > > > > > > It does, but the alternative is an HTML->HTML transformation, which is > > > > arguably more complex because HTML is so expressive. We could make it > > > > work > > > > if we enforced a very limited subset of HTML as the input, though. > > > > > > > > > > > > 3. Markdown is not a standard and we cannot rely on it to stay the > > > > same, HTML is. > > > > > > > > > > > > This is not actually true, the history of HTML is littered with > > > > examples: > > > > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines_%28Non-standard_HTML%29#Deprecated_HTML_elements > > > > > > > > But you're right that Markdown is not currently led by any large > > > > standards > > > > body. I think there are two mitigating factors: > > > > > > > > (a) The primary uses for these files will be: > > > > > > > > - to be transformed for general consumption, and > > > > - to serve as an archive. > > > > > > > > The first is internal to CC only, the second requires at most that the > > > > file > > > > be readable at some point in the future without our help. In other > > > > words, we > > > > do not need every client (browser) to natively understand the format. > > > > > > > > (b) Markdown is so incredibly simple, it's hard to imagine a future > > > > where > > > > someone will be unable to read it: > > > > > > > > http://etherpad.creativecommons.org/p/markdown-example > > > > > > > > 4. Markdown basically is short hand for HTML, again why would we use it? > > > > > > > > > > > > Simplicity, and as a forcing function to get us to stop putting in > > > > extraneous content in our licenses. > > > > > > > > Dan > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > cc-devel mailing list > > > > cc-devel@lists.ibiblio.org (mailto:cc-devel@lists.ibiblio.org) > > > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-devel > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > cc-devel mailing list > > cc-devel@lists.ibiblio.org (mailto:cc-devel@lists.ibiblio.org) > > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-devel > > > > > > -- > | Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E | > | http://grossmeier.net A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D | > _______________________________________________ > cc-devel mailing list > cc-devel@lists.ibiblio.org (mailto:cc-devel@lists.ibiblio.org) > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-devel > >
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