Ripping the HTML WG a New Arse (quietly)

Yesterday's HTML WG meeting marked the change in the working group leadership. Sam Ruby attended as Co-chair.

Smells like HTML5 development via group consensus.
Issue 54 was discussed http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/54, by the members of the working group on the call. sam ruby then emailed HTML WG list:

In today's conference call, the following issue was looked at:

http://www.w3.org/html/wg/tracker/issues/54

A number of people raised the issue that the solution in the current draft
only addressed one tool, and not all legacy tools.

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-doctype

The suggestion was made that the name of this doctype be changed from
xslt-compat to legacy-compat. Expressing support for this idea were
hsivonen, DanC, anne, gsnedders, smedero, and myself. (Note: I believe
that Julian was also OK with this idea too, but didn't manage to scribe
that)

Any objections?

- Sam Ruby

That was easy wasn't it
Not a peep out of Hixie so far.
Next steps should be to direct the editor to make the change (if no substantial objections are made).


Remember the recent words of the hyper inflated ego (AKA Googles Ian 'Hixie' Hickson)

The HTML5 work isn’t using the traditional W3C approach, and will never use a consensus approach so long as I am editor. Consensus simply isn’t a good way to get technically solid specifications, and is in any case basically impossible to achieve in a group with hundreds of participants such as this one.
Ian Hickson - http://intertwingly.net/blog/2008/11/20/Half-Full#c1227317561

and the recent words of Sam Ruby

IMHO, what’s needed is a chair that will take consensus whenever he (or she) can find it, and graciously accept defeat when that’s not possible. Again, not all of the goals are achievable by 2010.
Sam Ruby - http://intertwingly.net/blog/2008/11/20/Half-Ful

Mr last week Sez: The two views appear to be in conflict, so shall we see Hixie hopping on his bike, taking another nice ride backwards down a slippery slope of his own making, or will Hixie expose the tumescence of his manhood and enforce his 'no consensus' ruling?