Quote:
Originally Posted by skreutzer
Well, but you guys are missing one important point here: the standard specifications are for machine readability, a check for formal correctness. They too define how a device manufacturer should render the defined constructs, but of course they can't force them to react on constructs according to the standard, they can't provide implementations for every combination of constructs, and they even leave some decisions up to the implementor (such as footnote rendering in EPUB3), which is perfectly fine. There is other reading software than the renderer software in e-reading devices, such as webservers and processing tools, which might have a completely different rendering or no rendering at all, and as devices change over time, the standard definition serves as common protocol about how information should be encoded, so that software and devices of the future might access the encoded information in the best possible way.
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Have you read the specs at all? There is a lot that can be interpreted in different manners. Some are minor (auto margins), but some are major and handles structure. Good specifications and standards should not leave room for interpretation. It should be clear what is and what isn't correct. Then, and only then, a good validation can be build and compliant readers would interpret everything the same. Unfortunatly, that is an utopia.