Trouble Brewing at the W3C?

An anonymous reader writes "A breakaway faction of the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) called WHAT-WG, or the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group--which includes Apple, the Mozilla Foundation and Opera--is threatening to revolt over electronic forms standards. WHAT-WG has announced its intention to submit the draft to the W3C, posing the potentially awkward possibility of the consortium advocating two conflicting avenues for Web forms. The fate of a standard could also determine whether the order form could be accessed in any standards-compliant Web browser, or if it would be available only to users of a particular operating system--an outcome that has browser makers and others worried about the role of Microsoft."

Comments

You know the saying -

[Black Parrot]

"The best thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from."

BROWSER WARS IV - A New Hope

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a period of civil war.
Mozilla spaceships, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Microsoft Empire.

During the battle, Mozilla
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire's
ultimate weapon, INTERNET
EXPLORER 7, an armored web
browser with enough power to
destroy an entire website.

Pursued by the Empire's
sinister agents, WHAT-WG
races home aboard its
browser, custodian of the
form standards that can save
their people and restore
freedom to the galaxy....

Re: BROWSER WARS IV - A New Hope

[flargleblarg]

May the Source be with you.

Re:BROWSER WARS IV - A New Hope

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to read this comment properly, I needed to tilt my screen way back.

Wow...

[Quixote]

FTA:
Forms based on current Web standards are used in every Google search, every Amazon.com sale, every automated blog entry, every online tax payment, and every Web e-mail log-in.

Wow... I didn't know these all-powerful "forms" were everywhere!

Re:Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know that bloggers were automatons.

Duh. Most blogs are just scripts that copy articles from news.google.com and randomly insert the words "meme" and "blogosphere".

Re:Wow...

[earthbound kid]

Oh yeah, read your Plato. The Forms are awesome. First of all, there's the Form of the Good, which is a lot like the sun. And everyone else is like a slave in cave. (Basically, it's just a rip-off of the Matrix. Still, it's kind of interesting.)

So, if I understand this story correctly, Microsoft feels that Forms are just properties of webpages that already exist, but the others feel that Forms are timeless, ideal webpages that we can remember experiencing before our birth. You know, like the Englebart hypertext computer.

If the standards committee is really torn between these two ways of understand the Forms, it may come down to someone like Hegel, showing that the Forms are a historically evolving entity, moving towards an inevitable conclusion.

Or, Microsoft will do whatever the hell they want in IE7 and everyone will just have to complain about it.

Either way, it's good to see more public philosophy.

All-powerful forms

[flargleblarg]

Kid, I've flown from one side of the galaxy to the other and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful form that controls everything.

Re:All-powerful forms

[Anonymous Coward]

he who controls who has a form controls the universe.

That also sounds familiar...

The planet Internet, known as Earth.
Land of PCs.
Home of the users of web-forms.
He who controls the users, controls the forms.
He who controls the forms... controls the universe.
The W3C has proposed a challenge to each of the three great browsers.
"The browser that produces the most users shall rule the web.
"There are no fixed territories, and no rules of engagement."
Vast armies have arrived.
Now three browsers fight for control of Earth.
The noble Mozilla.
The insidious Opera.
And the evil Internet Explorer.
Only one browser will prevail.

Your battle for Earth begins... NOW.

(Man, that takes me back. It's been, what, 13 years now... ^^)

Blasphemy!

[Otter]

A breakaway faction of the World Wide Web consortium (W3C) called WHAT-WG, or the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group...

Sorry, I'm holding out for the WHAT-WJD!

Re:Blasphemy!

[jalefkowit]

It was actually commented when the WHAT-WG was first founded that if they had thought a moment about the acronym, they'd have named it the "Web Hypertext Application Technology Task Force" instead... (go ahead, spell it out)

Succeeding standard

[Anonymous Writer]

None of these companies or organisations are going to dictate what the used standard will be. As usual, it will be the porn industry :P

Actually...

[game kid]

...I'm waiting for the OHHKAAAY-WG and the YEEAAAHHHH-WG.

It doesn't scare me too much, I know how to make HTML forms and (as the old "Chevy Van" song goes) that's all right with me... I guess we'll soon abandon the "relic in Internet time" known as HTML 4 soon though (not sure when that'll happen at Slash"HTML 3.2 Final"dot--just look at that DOCTYPE in the page source...).

Priorities.

[Asprin]

Mozilla, Opera and Apple are allied? I don't even have to know what it's about to know which side I'm on.

Task Force

[AlexeiMachine]

The WHAT-WG is more than a working group now. I fact, they're an actual task force!

Let's hear it for the WHAT-TF

Third base

[Sajma]

Q: What's the name of your working group?
A: Right.
Q: "Right" is the name of your working group?
A: No, WHAT is.
Q: What is what?
A: WHAT is the name of my working group.
Q: That's what I just aksed you.
A: No, that's what I just told you.
Q: No, no -- just tell me the name of your working group!
A: WHAT.
Q: I said, tell me the name of your working group.
A: WHAT.
Q: WHAT'S THE NAME OF YOUR WORKING GROUP, DAMMIT!?
A: Right! But my name's not Dammit...
(strangling noises)

Re:What's the difference??

[0x20]

Dad?

Fixed a mistake

[mindaktiviti]

During the battle, Mozilla
spies managed to steal secret
plans to the Empire's
ultimate weapon, INTERNET
EXPLORER 7, an armored web
browser with enough power to
destroy an entire Windows OS.

No need for thanks, I'm here to help.