Re: <iframe loading="lazy">

[Alex Russell]

Hey everyone,

There has been some anxiety regarding the fate of `<iframe loading="lazy">` which we approved last year:

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/jxiJvQc-gVg/discussion

When the intent was approved, it was  backed by WIP spec text in a PR:

https://github.com/whatwg/html/pull/3752

That passed the usual bar for the OWNER's risk-based approach to evaluating features. Since that time, the <img> portions of the spec have landed, whereas we dropped a ball on the <iframe> variant landing in the HTML spec.

We (the API_OWNERs) apologize for not following up to ensure that spec changes continued to be proposed to support this feature. It's important that we are consistently responsible towards our commitments to follow through.

Since this situation has been brought to our attention, some have suggested un-shipping the feature. This has the potential to cause breakage. Changes of this sort have to clear a very high bar until further notice:

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/jxiJvQc-gVg/discussion

It isn't clear that such a bar has been met.

Further, substantive changes to the launched behavior haven't been proposed. We don’t regret shipping the feature, but we do regret the process issue. Meanwhile, usage remains relatively low:

https://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/2933

Happily, the Chrome loading and rendering teams have committed to us that they'll work to specify the feature. Having considered the balance of concerns, the OWNERs regret having created this situation but do not find reason to unlaunch it at this time.

Should the eventual consensus design require behavior or semantics changes, we'll ensure that Chromium's implementation adjusts to match and that the ecosystem is brought along responsibly.

Apologetic Regards,

Alex Russell
on behalf of the API_OWNERS

[sligh...@chromium.org]

On Friday, May 1, 2020 at 4:31:27 PM UTC-7, Alex Russell wrote:

Hey everyone,

There has been some anxiety regarding the fate of `<iframe loading="lazy">` which we approved last year:

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/jxiJvQc-gVg/discussion

When the intent was approved, it was  backed by WIP spec text in a PR:

https://github.com/whatwg/html/pull/3752

That passed the usual bar for the OWNER's risk-based approach to evaluating features. Since that time, the <img> portions of the spec have landed, whereas we dropped a ball on the <iframe> variant landing in the HTML spec.

We (the API_OWNERs) apologize for not following up to ensure that spec changes continued to be proposed to support this feature. It's important that we are consistently responsible towards our commitments to follow through.

Since this situation has been brought to our attention, some have suggested un-shipping the feature. This has the potential to cause breakage. Changes of this sort have to clear a very high bar until further notice:

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/blink-dev/jxiJvQc-gVg/discussion

Apologies, that should have been a link to this message from Mike re: stability:

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/blink-dev/kMhb8lIYAVE/p-w5_kBOAQAJ

Thanks to Eric Mill for spotting my error.