On Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Glenn Adams <gl...@skynav.com> wrote: > As far as I'm aware, the WHATWG is an unincorporated association, > cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_association. As such, it does not > enjoy the status of being a legal entity.
Maybe not, but this is very legally real: "© Copyright 2004-2011 Apple Computer, Inc., Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software ASA." > Nobody has an obligation to follow the decisions of the HTML-WG; however, > standards are only as useful as they are adopted, not only from a de facto > but also a de jure perspective. The status of HTML5 w.r.t. the WHATWG will > be completely irrelevant with respect to established, de jure Standards > Development Organizations. If the WHATWG were to become a legal entity and > be accredited by an international or national standards body, then that > would change. Perhaps. > The entire world of standards bodies and formal industry consortia recognize > the authority of the W3C with respect to publishing formal standards for > HTML, including HTML5. They do NOT recognize the authority of the WHATWG. I guess history will be the judge of that, specially as to which version _actually_ gets implemented by browsers (and which version engineers are actually referring to as they are implementing). > In reality, at this point in time, the WHATWG is no more than a drafting > group that is feeding the W3C HTML WG with material. I think it might be the other way around, specially as the WHATWG spec is more complete and contains more new stuff. > As such, the authority > of the latter takes precedence over the former in the minds of all formal > customers of HTML5. Depends on who the consumers are. > Of course, individuals (including corporations) may decide to favor the > positions of the WHATWG, but that will not affect the formal, public > position of international, national, and industry specific standards and > specifications organizations, who will favor the W3C. That's fine; the W3C does provide a seal of quality and IPR assurances - but the work will continue in both places regardless. -- Marcos Caceres http://datadriven.com.au
