Re: Mozilla mathml project to be interred

	I'm not really a fan of the use of scripts to convert row text into 
MathML. This assumes that any program reading the formula has 
javascript/DOM capability and can build the MathML DOM tree. But for 
example, this may not be the case for other non-browser rendering 
engines or for search engines [1]. In general techniques that do not 
give access to MathML source (such that the construction of SVG formulae 
proposed by the moodle guy) should be avoided, in my opinion: they 
prevent all of what MathML is intended for (apart from giving a good 
rendering). I think the right thing to do is to make the conversion 
*before* serving the page, such as in [2] or as Blahtex does. Of course, 
I would really be happy if Wikipedia uses ASCIIMathML to replace png 
images. However it seems the main difficulty here is to make core 
developers of MediaWiki integrate a new extension.

	About mixing formulas & graphics, the W3C has not specified entirely 
how this should be done, even if MathML & SVG specs and note [3] give 
some hints. The inclusion of a formula inside a graphics should be 
reflected by the DOM structure: the MathML tree should be a subtree of 
the SVG one. Hence the use of a <foreignObject/> to put MathML inside 
SVG (again, see [2]) is better than using overlapped CSS <div/>'s. For 
instance, it is expected than a copy&paste of the <svg/> also acts on 
the formula and this is straightforward when <foreignObject/> is used. 
Another example, for people who have Amaya or a SMIL-enabled build of 
Mozilla: a formula *really* included inside SVG can be transformed 
and/or animated [4].

	Back to the chicken or the egg dilemma, I think that implementers 
should take the first step and propose as much features of the Spec as 
possible. People do want to use formulas on the Web and if the current 
implementations are not sufficient, they are unfortunately going to use 
workarounds such that png/svg images or javascript-generated MathML DOM 
+ CSS. Thanks to the switch to Cairo and Karl's work, MathML-in-SVG is 
now possible in Mozilla. Allowing MathML/SVG in HTML is another step 
forward, since it seems that the current requirement that a document 
must be served as XML is one of the main limitation for users. Finally, 
another improvement in Mozilla that has not been previously given: 
Thunderbird is now built with MathML support [5].
	
[1] http://search.mathweb.org/index.xhtml
[2] http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/instiki/show/Sandbox
[3] http://www.w3.org/Math/Documents/Notes/graphics.xml
[4] 
http://www.maths-informatique-jeux.com/international/mathml_with_other_standards/mathml_svg.xml
[5] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=456014