Problems at the W3C

dustin writes "Public outcry against the workings of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is growing. On Sunday, Björn Höhrmann announced his departure in a lengthy critique of problems at the W3C. Web standards champion Zeldman adds his comments as well: 'Beholden to its corporate paymasters who alone can afford membership, the W3C seems increasingly detached from ordinary designers and developers.'"

Comments

Possible solution?

[QuantumFTL]

Maybe a non-profit organization of independent web developers could be formed (perhaps already exists?) that could obtain membership on their behalf?

Re:Possible solution?

[Enrico Pulatzo]

Fight fire with fire? Nah, that won't float around here :)

Seriously, though, good call.

Re:Possible solution?

[Otter]

As I understood Hoehrmann's message, his complaint is insufficient budget for full-time developers and testers, and to keep the validator running.

Re:Possible solution?

[XenoPhage]

Why not take this further and replace the W3C altogether? It obviously doesn't work long-term, so replace it with something that will. A non-profit organization with a focus on development and maintenance of web standards. I think if you can get Opera and Mozilla on board, then I think Microsoft will be forced to follow.

Is the W3C itself that important?

Re:Possible solution?

[hixie]

"A non-profit organization with a focus on development and maintenance of web standards" is exactly what W3C staff think the W3C is. What would prevent the staff of a new organisation from ending up in the same state?

Re:Possible solution?

[twistedsymphony]

Perhaps a BETTER institution would be one that tells you how to code your pages to work with 100% of browsers as they are today (broken features in all) and in addition to that makes suggestions for where browsers should go next.

W3C standards are nice and all but IMO a web standard is only as good as the % of browsers in use that support it. You can speak perfect french but if everyone trying to talk to you is Japanese it doesn't do you much good. Sure I can make my webpage conform to a standard (w3C or otherwise) but that doesn't mean the page will actually work when viewed with browser X or Y. A much more USEFUL and BENEFICIAL tool would be one that tells me what I have to do to make my page work with everything out there. Tell me this line of code wont work when viewed using IE4 on tuesdays after 4PM... and maybe even give me an estimate on what % of users will be left out in the cold based on recent web browser usage estimates.

The W3C and other standards are good for making suggestions as to where the next generation of browsers should go but it's fairly useless in practice if the browsers people are using TODAY don't fully support it.

Re:Possible solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm...the validators, along with the (X)HTML and CSS specs are the only reasons I ever visit w3.org...in fact, the validators are by far the most useful things they provide, IMO.

Re:Possible solution?

[XenoPhage]

Perhaps a BETTER institution would be one that tells you how to code your pages to work with 100% of browsers as they are today (broken features in all) and in addition to that makes suggestions for where browsers should go next.

I agree, sort of. It would be great to have a site to go to that will tell you what parts of your site won't work in what browsers, but that's more of a workaround. Albeit, a practical one.

Perhaps the issue isn't so much the standards, but the browsers. Of course, if every browser supported all of the standards, then there wouldn't be much difference between them. (Minus the security bugs of course) I'm not sure there is a good solution to this. Take a look at other "standards"... There are tons of different standards for encoding a simple text document. And not everyone supports all of them.

Re:Possible solution?

[twistedsymphony]

Perhaps the issue isn't so much the standards, but the browsers.

BINGO!

Of course, if every browser supported all of the standards, then there wouldn't be much difference between them

Gee... being able to choose which browser you use based purely on it's features and merrits as opposed to which pages they support... I'm sure if that ever happened Billy G's heart would be rolling in it's grave.

Re:Possible solution?

[jdbartlett]

Validators and especially specs are the only reason for anyone, anywhere, ever to visit w3.org. Without published specs, w3.org and the W3C itself would be very useless. XHTML and CSS are the most popular specs, but you'll probably start using others as you start developing more involved projects.

Re:Possible solution?

[WeAreAllDoomed]

As I understood Hoehrmann's message, his complaint is insufficient budget for full-time developers and testers, and to keep the validator running.

there was also a lot of discontent over being ignored by people who should be interested, and being ignored by processes that are supposed to pay attention.

Re:Possible solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are numerous non-profit members of the W3C, from the International Webmasters' Association/HTML Writers' Guild, to various special interest groups like the Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of People with Disabilities, and NATO. (OK, maybe NATO isn't a good example - and I am not sure if they are still a member). There are also individual members, since that was introduced a year or so ago. Companies paying the 60k are those whose turnover is in excess of 50 million USD - small minority of W3C members. But as ngibbons pointed out, the membership cost isn't really relevant to most serious participants. The amount of money Opera spends participating in W3C is mostly salaries for people working on W3C-related stuff. (We also pay to participate in IETF and ECMA, among other groups - and in all those cases time spent by engineers is far and away the significant cost).

Björn has a couple of legitimate grievances, but I don't think that they are in any way indicative of the organisation as a whole. A couple of mistakes, even relatively major ones, are not fair grounds to damn a bunch of people who are incredibly hard-working, generally not very well paid (and there are no share options, no selling the startup and getting rich, and not even much of a career path at W3C), and working under a massive amount of pressure, not so much from flamewars here as from the efforts of balancing competing interests within working groups. (The flaming in places like slahdot is noticed, often unpleasant, but often as ill-informed as Jeffrey Zeldman's throwaway line quoted above, and they have other things to lose sleep over).

W3C is an organisation where many stakeholders pay money or volunteer time to work very hard to develop an increasingly complex and important technology. It is held together by a small staff (60-70 people) who work incredibly hard to ensure that the corporate giants are not simply throwing their weight around, whether by spending years to bring them to a table where the patent nightmare that characterises most other IT bodies is by and large avoided, by ensuring that the Web actually works on the widest range of devices, in everybody's language, whether people have special needs caused by disability or their place in the world, or by taking on comments from individuals and spending the resources of working groups responding to them. It doesn't happen overnight, and it isn't cheap or easy.

In the last year I believe Opera may have spent as much money making sure Björn's own comments on various parts of W3C's work are responded to according to the process, as it has spent on its W3C membership. But then, he is an extraordinarily prolific and very valuable contributor, and as the person who answers for that investment I am satisfied it is justified. There are a number of other companies that I am sure are in the same position (and probably some who have also spent the money sweating over comments from Opera).

Yes, the people at W3C (both the staff and participants) make outright mistakes. They also make decisions from time to time that I think are stupid. If they were always right, there would be no place for WHAT-WG and the thousands or millions of projects small and large to improve the Web. But if they were always wrong, they wouldn't have recognised that in fact a lot of the WHAT-WG work is valuable, and brought it to the level of W3C's international reach. If they were completely out of touch there wouldn't be the massive global investment of effort and money in the technology they develop, or the commitment of so many to the work they do.

One of Björn's legitimate grievances, about a specification that went to Proposed Recommendation without giving a response to his comments, was in fact resolved by taking it back through the comment process again. That takes months, and costs the participants at W3C as well as the organisation itself a great deal of cash. The fact that they consider it worthwhile to do this reflects, in my opinion, one of their strengths: a real

I never understood..

[grasshoppa]

I never understood why web standards aren't maintained by the folks that actually are writing the browsers. Membership would require a browser with, say, x% market share.

This would seem to be a slam dunk to me. I figure you get Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera to the table, you'd have some pretty interesting standards developed that the browsers might stick to.

Might. Anyway, it'd be better than having some extra organization making up rules that none of them really pay more than a passing look at.

Re:I never understood..

[quanticle]

figure you get Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera to the table, you'd have some pretty interesting standards developed that the browsers might stick to.

That sounds great in theory, but what would probably happen in reality is that Microsoft would end up writing the standard, and adding proprietary, patented extensions onto it in order to ensure permanent dominance for Internet Explorer.

I would much rather have a somewhat supported open standard, rather than having a closed standard perfectly supported by one company.

Re:I never understood..

[Shining Celebi]

Microsoft, Mozilla, Opera, and Apple are all members of the W3C according to its members page.

Re:I never understood..

[Anonymous Coward]

Membership would require a browser with, say, x% market share.

Wow. That's the perfect way to innovate, because we've seen that market leaders are always the ones who take big risks. Yes, let's close out everyone below certain market share. Promote innovation. Please leave Slashdot now and go back watching "news" from Fox.

Re:I never understood..

[ForumTroll]

That might work if Microsoft had any interest in being standards compliant. They don't want everything to work perfectly in all browsers since being incompatible in some areas helps them retain their monopoly. This is one of the biggest and wealthiest corporations on the planet, if they really wanted to achieve compliance with the current set of standards they have every means to do so. Instead they choose to be way behind and create proprietary extensions that only work on their OS.

Re:I never understood..

[andrewman327]

I think that they would be too afraid of exposing intelectual property to let this fly. I imagine a coder from each company sitting with his lawyer around a conference table.

Microsoft: "It's a nice day today."
MSFT Lawyer: "That's patent pending, you can't touch it!"

Re:I never understood..

[NutscrapeSucks]

That might work if Microsoft had any interest in being standards compliant.

Being disinterested in browser development is not the same thing as being disinterested in standards compliance.

If you look at IE in the late 90s, for example, what you saw was that they were implementing W3C standards at an emormous rate, blowing Netscape and Opera out of the water, and IE was by far the most standards-compliant browser at the time.

The Standards game always favors the players that invest the most money in development -- If MS wanted to bury Firefox, they could just spend the cash to invent and implement standards at a rate that nobody could keep up with.

The root issue is that MS doesn't see web standards support as an important competitive issue.

Re:I never understood..

[fm6]

I figure you get Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera to the table, you'd have some pretty interesting standards developed that the browsers might stick to.

That's not Microsoft's history with standards bodies. They come up with some ideas that rely heavily on their own technology. (Did you know that the first version of XSL used Visual Basic as a transform language?!) When the other participants fail to react with total enthusiasm, they decide that standards are overrated.

To be fair, Netscape in its heyday was just as bad as Microsoft when it came to ignoring standards. But I've long thought that both Microsoft and Netscape would have been more standards compliant if W3C had done something to encourage standards compliance. Like trying to issue standards on a timely basis, instead of just assuming that implementers would sit on their hands until standards were ready. Or like creating standards tests instead of waiting for third parties to do it.

But no, they just shrug their shoulders and keep creating standards that nobody will ever implement. W3C has not been effective for a very long time.

Re:I never understood..

[masklinn]

If MS wanted to bury Firefox, they could just spend the cash to invent and implement standards at a rate that nobody could keep up with.

No they couldn't, because they'd have to redevelop MSIE from scratch and forget about backward compatibility with previous IE-only code.

Re:I never understood..

[man_of_mr_e]

Uhhh... think... hmmm.. thing some more...

Nope.. I just can't seem to put the pieces together here. If Microsoft writes things into the standard, how could they be extensions? How could they be proprietary?

What were you trying to say?

Re:I never understood..

[fotoflojoe]

That sounds great in theory, but what would probably happen in reality is that Microsoft would end up writing the standard, and adding proprietary, patented extensions onto it in order to ensure permanent dominance for Internet Explorer.
Agreed.
A scenario like what the GP suggests would create a 'fox guarding the hen house' kind of situation.

Re:I never understood..

[NutscrapeSucks]

Even if that was true, IE already supports two modes ('standards' and legacy), so they could do it with the proper application of cash.

Re:I never understood..

[4pins]

No! With this market share model Microsoft would have been the only one at the table just a few years back. Unless the threshold was very low in which case too many players would be at this table.

Re:I never understood..

[baadger]

The root issue is that MS doesn't see web standards support as an important competitive issue.

Yet. Once IE7 has shipped with whole bunch of competitive out of the box features, Microsoft has to put it's foot down and start the real work of restoring faith in it's users. Firefox's usage may be low, but i'm sure most of remaining IE userbase must have been feeling *the ripples* even if they aren't aware of Firefox's existance or choose not to use it.

I'm of the opinion that IE7 is just a distraction, a way of catching up superficially to yank on the chains of the competition. Once it's out and the buzz has died down they are going to need that late 90's velocity right back (and they *have* said there will be more frequent updates to IE) otherwise it's going to be a gross waste of time and a huge disappointment.

The question is, will Firefox's (now large) ego survive a battering if MS really ramp it up in IE8 once Vista is out of the box and can Mozilla remain competitive? Personally I hope not, being humbled is good for the thought process.

Re:I never understood..

[hixie]

Actually Microsoft take part in several working groups, most notably the CSS working group, and seem to do so in good faith. They play by our extension rules, they are making attempts at fixing their standards compliance bugs, etc. I'm not saying they're perfect, but ever since Firefox showed them their market share wasn't guaranteed, they've become active again and have been acting as reasonably as the other major browser vendors.

Re:I never understood..

[ScottLindner]

Very few "web standards" have anything to do with "web browsers". Most of them deal with Web Services and business to business standards that piggy back on HTTP.

Re:I never understood..

[codemaster2b]

Close. Actually, Microsoft would never write the standard. There would be no standard. Let me think... that's exactly the way it is right now!

Microsoft is non-standard. Period. That is how they maintain a monopoly.

I would rather have a standard that stayed put long enough to actually become a standard. Sure, Microsoft is never going to implement it, but I wish it would stay put so everyone else could. Do you hear me WC3?

Re:I never understood..

[Bogtha]

I figure you get Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera to the table, you'd have some pretty interesting standards developed that the browsers might stick to.

That's a perfectly reasonable belief. One that, unfortunately, does not correspond to reality. All the major browser developers have been members of the W3C. Microsoft helped write the CSS specifications. Just because an organisation has been involved in designing something, it doesn't mean they are going to support it.

Re:I never understood..

[richwklein]

Isn't that what Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group is?

Re:I never understood..

[RingDev]

I don't think that's an acurate analogy. I think having MS, FF, OP developing standards would be more along the lines of having a coop of farmers guarding the hen house, as opposed to having an independat group of part time hobby farmers (W3C) trying to raise the chickens.

-Rick

Re:I never understood..

[NutscrapeSucks]

I'm of the opinion that IE7 is just a distraction, a way of catching up superficially to yank on the chains of the competition.

I somewhat agree that the IE7 plan makes sense -- from an End User point of view, IE's failings are the lack of Tabs and poor security, so it makes sense to address those first.

99% of End Users could frankly care less about full CSS2 support, because everything is equally possible with tables and a little script. But IE got on top largely because it went after the 'hearts and minds' of developers, so eventually they'll have to get back to that (if they're serious about keeping IE dominant).

Re:I never understood..

[Waffle Iron]

How could they be proprietary?

By being patented. Proprietary software is essentially the only development model that's compatible with patents.

And of course standards controlled by Microsoft would most likely be covered by MS patents. Why wouldn't they be?

Re:I never understood..

[ClosedSource]

I hate to burst your idealistic bubble, but the fact is that historically most important standards were developed by large corporations.

Re:I never understood..

[Anonymous Coward]

I never understood why web standards aren't maintained by the folks that actually are writing the browsers. Membership would require a browser with, say, x% market share.

This would seem to be a slam dunk to me. I figure you get Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera to the table, you'd have some pretty interesting standards developed that the browsers might stick to.

Might. Anyway, it'd be better than having some extra organization making up rules that none of them really pay more than a passing look at.

There's already a standards organization that all the major browser vendors (except Microsoft) are a part of. It's called the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group. They've already submitted a specification called Web Forms 2.0 to the W3C. The Web Application Formats Working Group and the Web APIs Working Group within the W3C are largely a response to WHATWG.

Microsoft is supposedly talking to WHATWG, but so far as I can tell, they're not posting anything on the mailing list. In the standards arena, Microsoft is pretty much MIA.

Re:I never understood..

[Anonymous Coward]

That why reference implementations are critical in developing these wide-covering standards. Could be why such technologies as Java and Python are doing well-most APIs and new extensions come with refernece implementations. The upfront commitment and costs are more, but definitely worth it.

Re:I never understood..

[JakusMinimus]

Your analogy sucks. It sucks because it is based on the implicit assumption that none of the farmers will attempt to dominate and/or kill off the others.

Fox in the hen-house was quite apt.

Re:I never understood..

[Tom Veil]

Or like creating standards tests instead of waiting for third parties to do it.

These have existed for years:

http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/
http://validator.w3.org/
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

All of these are front-page links at w3.org.

Re:I never understood..

[Skreems]

If MS wanted to bury Firefox, they could just spend the cash to invent and implement standards at a rate that nobody could keep up with.

No, they couldn't. Firefox has passed the point of being a curiosity, and is a serious concern in the business world. They're up to what, 14% global market share? Somewhere in that neighborhood, anyway. No business is going to say, "hey, look at this fancy new extension in IE! That's worth losing 15% of our customers over, right?". The fact that other browsers have taken significant portions of their market share means that Microsoft now HAS to play fair. No matter how many new things they shove into IE, developers are going to make cross-browser compatible pages. Those new features would go largely ignored.

Re:I never understood..

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly! Like the Caller ID situation. (If memory serves) MS had come up with a promising scheme to try to reduce spam emails, and were willing to release the spec to all, but were holding patents over several methods detailed in the spec. They would then license those patents out to interested parties - pretty much blocking OSS software straight away. They could also decline to license you the patents if they thought your product might compete too well with them - though given their monopoly status, and the recent complaints in the US/EU about their business tactics you might be able to take them to court for abusing their status - though they'd drag it out for years and when you finally won (if you did at all) whatever product you wanted to sell would be obsolete, and your company would probably be bankrupt too.

Re:I never understood..

[baadger]

But IE got on top largely because it went after the 'hearts and minds' of developers

Developers! Developers! Developers!

Re:I never understood..

[SilentBob0727]

Insert generic flame for making non-negative comment about Microsoft here.

Re:I never understood..

[John Nowak]

Finally -- Someone has put it into terms a geek can understand!!

Re:I never understood..

[Tim C]

Proprietary software is essentially the only development model that's compatible with patents.

You can take out a patent on something then give a rolayty-free licence to anyone who wants one to implement the patented tech. No, it's not usual, and yes, there is always the fear that you'll change your mind in the future, but it's not entirely true to say that only proprietary software can work with patents.

Re:I never understood..

[NutscrapeSucks]

"Nobody will develop for IE because Netscape has 60% marketshare"

Re:I never understood..

[fm6]

Yes, they exist: in a limited, badly supported, underfinanced form. Did you RTFA?

I use the CSS validator myself. It badly needs work.

Re:I never understood..

[Skreems]

I didn't say nobody would develop for it. I'm saying now that there's a set of working interoperable standards (something that really didn't exist back during the browser wars) people aren't going to exclusively develop for a single browser, cutting out the rest of the market in the process.

Re:I never understood..

[quanticle]

You can take out a patent on something then give a rolayty-free licence to anyone who wants one to implement the patented tech.

Yes, a company could do that. But can you see Microsoft doing it? And, in any case, once the software is patented, many wouldn't consider the standard to be open anymore, since you'd have to get permission from the single patent holder. The patent holder could also deny the licenses to whomever he or she wished and could put all sorts of arbitrary restrictions on those licenses. The patent holder could also revoke licenses that had already been issued, creating a nice scenario for extortion, where one would either have to meet demands or potentially have the core technology ripped out of one's software. I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to implement some of these strategies, if they ever get a patent on one of their standards.

Re:I never understood..

[jZnat]

When the end users don't get any websites that look good because the developers can't achieve it with the piss-poor support of shit like IE, they'll notice. Give screenshots of neat effects available in CSS 2.1 and CSS 3, and show screenshots of how fucked up it'd be in IE, and then we can see how irrelevant it really is.

Re:I never understood..

[NutscrapeSucks]

Do you have an example of a "neat effect" that's only possible with CSS2.1? I sure can't think of one.

Re:I never understood..

[amliebsch]

Yes, a company could do that. But can you see Microsoft doing it?

That's exactly what Microsoft is doing for their OpenXML document format.

Re:I never understood..

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to implement some of these strategies, if they ever get a patent on one of their standards.

Microsoft tried with Sender-ID...

Re:I never understood..

[man_of_mr_e]

How is that, exactly? They've published a covenant not to sue, exactly like Sun did with ODF. You don't need to get a license to implement OpenXML.

Re:I never understood..

[man_of_mr_e]

Standards organizations usually require RAND policies on any patents.

Re:I never understood..

[man_of_mr_e]

Caller ID wasn't a standard, and was rightfully rejected because of the patent issues. That's the standards process working as it's supposed to. I still stand by the point, if it's a standard, it can't be an "extension" by definition, and by definition, it can't be proprietary.

Re:I never understood..

[Waffle Iron]

That doesn't help. Non-proprietary software just doesn't have the mechanisms in place to track patent licenses or account for royalties, RAND or not.

Re:I never understood..

[pedantic bore]

... because the standards would be whatever was already in the code, and would morph to chase bug fixes and the latest hacks.

It's always good to decouple the specs and the implementation.

Re:I never understood..

[fatboy]

I just can't seem to put the pieces together here. If Microsoft writes things into the standard, how could they be extensions? How could they be proprietary?
Are you are not familiar with Microsoft's self described "embrace and extend" tatic?

Re:I never understood..

[Nurgled]

History has shown that by letting the browser developers "write the spec" through their implementations you end up with features that are designed to suit a particular browser's architecture, with little thought to the ramifications of this on other browsers and on users of the features.

The biggest example of this is the IMG element. This was invented by the Netscape guys, and submitted for feedback. They got lots of feedback suggesting the element was broken because it did not gracefully degrade in browsers without support and lacked the ability to offer alternative content containing HTML markup. The Netscape guys then replied "Oh. Well screw you all because this is easier to implement and we're releasing it anyway." Years later, the ALT text issue is of little consequence as all browsers now render either the image or the alternative text, but with browsers starting to support new image formats like SVG it'd be nice to be able to offer an SVG image with a PNG fallback. W3C tried to propose OBJECT as a more general alternative, but it hasn't really caught on because there's already an existing "good enough" solution.

The Netscape guys are aren't the only offenders. Microsoft announced ActiveX which, by its very nature, cannot run on operating systems other than Windows or on other architectures. Their XMLHttpRequest feature was provided as an ActiveX library, meaning that when other browsers implemented it they had to adjust the implementation to work without ActiveX, making their implementations incompatible with Microsoft's "standard". Microsoft also offered VML, which is essentially an XML serialization of the graphics objects out of Microsoft Office. The Mozilla guys made XBL, which is a great idea but their initial implemention had some warts that made it hard to implement in other browsers; there's currently a group working on "XBL2" which will fix XBL to be more portable.

I think it's a good idea to have some external entity involved, acting as a mediator. The browser developers should obviously be involved, but there should still be some discussion of the implementation of each new feature to ensure that it can be implemented in a compatible manner in various browsers and to ensure that it isn't going to cause problems for web developers.

Re:I never understood..

[mgblst]

You are not saying that they are perfect? You are also not saying that we have all been down this road before, and we have seen they way Microsoft handles this. Why, because they can, they have market share, they basically define the standard by this. It is not in their interest to help out, and when they want to pull out and do their own thing, they will.

Re:I never understood..

[Anonymous Coward]

With regards to Microsoft's participation in CSS specs, you should really do your homework before making such comments. Check the following URL:

http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work

      The only specification that has a Microsoft employee listed as a current editor is the CSS TV Profile 1.0 Candidate Recommendation, which Sean Hayes is working on. I could not find a single message posted by him in the www-style mailing list archive.

      Michel Suignard is listed as an editor for about half a dozen specifications, but his name is deliberately crossed out as an editor for all of them, suggesting that he's no longer involved. He also hasn't posted a message on the www-style mailing list since March of 2005.

      Tantek Çelik continues to work on many CSS specifications, but he left Microsoft in 2004 and now works for Technorati.

      Brad Pettit is listed as an additional author for CSS3 Color Module, but that's all I could find for him. I could not find any messages posted by him in the www-style mailing list archive.

      So, in a nutshell, I can't find anything that says Microsoft is currently involved in any writing of CSS specifications whatsoever.

Re:I never understood..

[man_of_mr_e]

You're missing the point. If it's in the standard, it can't be an extension, now can it?

Re:I never understood..

[hixie]

If you read the original post in this thread that I responded to, you'll see that I wasn't arguing that Microsoft have never (or will never) abuse their dominant market position. We know they do that, they've been convicted of doing that. What I said was simply that Microsoft was not to blame for the things that are wrong at the W3C, most notably, those that Bjoern mentioned in TFA.

Life isn't like the movies or video games. Companies can be in the wrong in some areas without being the root cause of badness everywhere. Multiple groups of people can be in the wrong in multiple places and at multiple times.

Re:I never understood..

[hixie]

I'm in the CSS working group, and have been for 6 years (I'm one of the editors of two of the three "High Priority" items on the list you cited). Microsoft are very active. They might not be editors of many drafts today, but that doesn't mean they're not active. (Sadly, the CSS group is one of the many W3C groups that still operate behind closed doors. Hopefully this will change in due course, but anything that involves interacting with the W3C bureaucracy is time consuming, so don't hold your breath.)

Re:I never understood..

[Tom Veil]

Yes, they exist: in a limited, badly supported, underfinanced form. Did you RTFA?

Yes, I read the article, and this is a legitimate complaint, but that wasn't the complaint that you made. Did you read your own comment?

Complaining that something is badly supported and complaining that something doesn't exist aren't the same thing, and my telepathy isn't strong enough to pick up what you meant to say.

Re:I never understood..

[fm6]

Oh dear. I said that that there were no tools and I should have said that there were no well-supported tools. Evil, evil, me!

Get a life, dude.

Re:I never understood..

[Tom Veil]

Settle down, already. My initial reply didn't insult, accuse, or attack you in any way: It just stated a fact. My second reply was a bit more frustrated, but it didn't stoop to insults or name-calling. If you want to lower yourself to that over a simple miscommunication, that's your problem.

And that's all I have to say about that...

Re:I never understood..

[fm6]

You're telling me to settle down? You're the one that's turning a missing adjective into a flame war.

Why not the IETF?

[Skynet]

Seems like the logical place to me.

Re:Why not the IETF?

[Pneuma ROCKS]

Actually, there already exists such an organization: the WHATWG. It was created by browser developers including Opera, Mozilla and the makers of Safari. They have released several specifications, some of which have already been implemented into the browsers. For instance, the canvas element, and SessionStorage, which is included in the upcoming Firefox 2.

Quite frankly I prefer the idea of a single standards organization, in this case the W3C. It's more sensible to find ways to make this organization more flexible and open than to start having competing standards and the unavoidable incompatibilities. But sometimes there is no alternative than radical change. I hope it doesn't come down to this.

Re:Why not the IETF?

[hixie]

Note that the WHATWG doesn't have membership in the W3C, which is what the grandparent was suggesting.

Re:Why not the IETF?

[dolphinling]

In the interest of accuracy, canvas was actually implemented by Safari before it was specced. IIRC (I participate in WHATWG but haven't followed canvas closely) a few changes were made between the spec and safari's version, but not many.

Session storage was specced before being implemented, although there was (and still is) editing done based on feedback from the people implementing it.

How disappointing

[billDCat]

How disappointing to hear this. We area at a time right now when we need standards more than anything. Between the onslaught of AJAX apps, the preponderance of Flash web apps, and the attempt by Microsoft to convert web apps to an extension of Windows with Sparkle and Avalon, we wholeheartedly need strong standards.

Re:How disappointing

[NutscrapeSucks]

Well, just as an outside observer, it seems like the W3C is not very interested in "the web as application platform" -- instead pushing new document models like XHTML2 that don't really solve any realworld app dev problems.

At least from my POV, the stuff going on at WHATWG -- such as a vastly improved FORM model and standardized AJAX support -- will have much more relevance to the web in the manner that I and probably most other slashdotters build it.

Re:How disappointing

[westlake]

Between the onslaught of AJAX apps, the preponderance of Flash web apps, and the attempt by Microsoft to convert web apps to an extension of Windows with Sparkle and Avalon, we wholeheartedly need strong standards.

To do what, encourage innovation or suppress it? To say that apps are coming thick and fast from those working outside the standards suggests that is where the Web 2.0 developer needs to be.

Re:How disappointing

[Hai-Etlik]

So, it's supposed to be a document language and XHTML 2 solves some real world document problems like parallel annotation (Ruby) and improved outlining (The section element).

Re:How disappointing

[billDCat]

I would disagree. While Web 2.0 is a new buzzword, the technologies behind it are not new. CSS, XHTML, and JavaScript all need established standards and best practices to properly function across multiple browsers. Accessibility standards help both AJAX-based and Flash-based applications better cater to various categories of access limitations. Also, user interface standards help make sure that a widget created with DHTML looks and behaves like a widget created with Flash. The free-for-all kind of development mentality is not a good long-term approach to develop applications, even though it is great for initially building knowledge.

Re:How disappointing

[hixie]

Ruby is in XHTML 1.1 as well (and IE supports it in HTML4, even). HTML5 will probably have ruby support in the spec.

HTML5 already has <section>.

(where "HTML5" is the name of the WHATWG language)

Wrong Problem

[ichin4]

The summary mis-represents the bulk of Bjoern's critique, which less about the lack of non-corporate participation and more about the fact that the organization just doesn't work.

I wonder how the bulk of slashdotters, for whom a W3C standard seems to be a sacred cow, will react to the message that these standards are all-too-often ambiguous, bone-headed, poorly supported, slow-moving, and lacking important features.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Standards aren't a sacred cow here -- they're just a convienent cudgel to bash Internet Explorer with.

Suggest that Linux fails to meet UNIX specifications, for example, and watch the apologies flow in.

Re:Wrong Problem

[linvir]

We're very, very sorry.

Re:Wrong Problem

[drinkypoo]

Suggest that Linux fails to meet UNIX specifications, for example, and watch the apologies flow in.

I haven't seen that one happen yet, especially since Linux doesn't purport to be UNIX(tm) (though it is Unix.)

Start telling people it's not POSIX, though, and they'll argue.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I wonder how the bulk of slashdotters, for whom a W3C standard seems to be a sacred cow, will react to the message that these standards are all-too-often ambiguous, bone-headed, poorly supported, slow-moving, and lacking important features.

I think you're being a little unfair there. There are some highly vocal, pro-W3C zealots around, but there are also some of us who have always argued that any sort of formal specification is merely a means to an end, and should be used if (and only if) that end is desirable under the circumstances.

In web design, if you want maximum portability, you follow W3C standards for all the smaller browsers, and then provide suitable hacks for the big one. OTOH, if you just want to reach most of the general public and don't want to chase diminishing returns much, targetting IE is the obvious choice, since it is the only relevant standard (albeit a de facto one) in this context, and your pages will still mostly work on other browsers (or get their users to switch back temporarily to IE) anyway.

Similarly for corporate intranets, some people bitch about how dangerous ActiveX is and yada yada yada, but the fact remains that it's a practical tool to solve a problem. Users complaining that "better" browsers like Firefox don't support it is going to cut exactly zero ice with any corporate management/IT.

IME, posts pointing this sort of thing out are frequently modded both Insightful and Troll/Flamebait several times, usually more + than -. Thus it seems rather unfair to characterise "the bulk of slashdotters" as being semi-religious W3C devotees. The majority of posters in certain discussions perhaps, but apparently not the majority of mods, and we'll never know about the lurkers or those who do post but are sensible enough to avoid religious topics.

Re:Wrong Problem

[molarmass192]

Jesus H, anybody who knows anything knows that Linux is not UNIX, and nobody besides a few noobs has ever suggested that Linux was UNIX. At best, it's a mix of SystemV and Berkley UNIX-like features, but guess what, it doesn't make a lick of difference. What! Shock? Horror? No, as you pointed out with your careful choice of words, UNIX is a specification -NOT- a standard. That's a very crucial distinction. Standards are meant for ***interoperability***. Standards are what allows that precious IE of yours to work with the Apache web server. Hell, it's what allows Window's TCPIP stack to work on the internet. On the other hand a specification, is about ***portability***, NOT interoperability. Conform to a specification, and you can be pretty well ensured of portability. People bash IE because MS constantly tries to violate standards. If MS used IE to comply with standards, rather than subvert them, but failed to make IE conform to, say the Mozilla XUL specification, then you'd have a valid point.

Re:Wrong Problem

[just_another_sean]

Yes I don't think it can be stressed enough how very upset we are by this unfortunate development.

We're doing our best to remedy the situation as we speak. Please excuse our dust while we renovate!

Re:Wrong Problem

[ichin4]

I'd mod your reply to my post insightful myself, if I could. You are right, I don't know with any accuracy what percentage of slashdotters are web standards zealots (and what percentage of those are web standards zealots, as another poster implied, only because it allows them to bash MSFT). So I should have said: I wonder how the W3C zealots arround here will react to this depiction of their sacred cow.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Apologist FTW. POSIX is a subset of UNIX, you know.

Re:Wrong Problem

[dgatwood]

Yeah. What part of "Linux Is Not UniX" did they not understand?

;-)

Re:Wrong Problem

[yo_tuco]

"your pages will still mostly work on other browsers (or get their users to switch back temporarily to IE) anyway."

But some can't switch back because it was never there to begin with.

Re:Wrong Problem

[HiThere]

Yeah, there are people who argue that. And in a kind of shortsighted way it makes sense.

And I've been known to target some particular application to a particular group of users (in one case 15 individuals). In that case I spec not only the browser, but the OS...and in that particular case I configured the OS to boot directly into my custom application.

This doesn't mean I think the idea of standards is bad, but I am *very* skeptical of the groups that grab control of standards. I believe that standard compliance should be voluntary. Totally. And that if a standard isn't useful, it should be deleted (not merely ignored, but ruled invalid). However, in order to do this you need some kind of body to do the adoption and repeal of standards.

I'm not sure the W3C has proven itself a trustworthy custodian of standards. It tends to want to adopt proprietary standards, and then allow people to be charged for using them. (And worse, not charged by the standards organization...which could be seen as a fair user charge, but charge by one [or more?] of the companies that helped design the standard.) Actions like that cause me to feel we would be better off without ANY W3C than with the one we've got. And then there's R.A.N.D., which is a clear attempt to prevent GPL software from using the standards.

If the W3C were much worse, I would recommend DEFINITELY dropping them immediately and either starting from scratch or attempting to "muddle through". As it is, however, they frequently provide a reasonable language about which to describe things. I'm reminded of the difference between the French grammar of France (government approved by designated sub-committee) and the grammar of English (when the Queen speaks, she says things this way...do what you chose, but you may reveal yourself as an uncultured idiot). I find that I approve of the English approach over the French ... I have no trouble (except for spelling) with "Hasta la vista", but the official French committee got into a tizzy over "baby-sitter". Of course, our histories and geographies are different.

The W3C is maintained and manipulated by a tight group of corporations to make decisions to their benefit. We need to realize this, and decide which of their decisons we consider acceptable, and which should be ignored. And not require VAST amounts of proof before deciding to ignore one of their decisions. This would be easier if there were a parallel organization of groups (and individuals) that were NOT represented on the W3c, which would issue it's own standards. Normally these could be rubber stamps of the W3C standards (to the extend that the W3C would allow this), and compatibility should certainly be striven for...if not insisted on. But when necessary, they could diverge, and then people could chose which standard to follow.

Re:Wrong Problem

[WhiteWolf666]

Suggest that Linux fails to meet UNIX specifications, for example, and watch the apologies flow in.

We're sorry, but LINUX is not Unix. That's what the acronym Linux stands for.

So not, it doesn't bother us Linux apologists.

Re:Wrong Problem

[J Story]

Bjoern's complaints address a number of inadequacies, but what stands out for me is an apparent lack of communication between his group and "them", and that puzzles me. Is the W3C some kind of star chamber? Is the list of its individual participants -- the people, not the companies -- held secret? Why is he not naming names?

Usually, if you take it upon yourself to do the legwork and you continually follow up with key members of a group, you can obtain a response and a justification. This is not easy, and sometimes it requires a team of dedicated people, but committee groupthink will take all kinds of silly positions if its individuals are not held to account as individuals.

Re:Wrong Problem

[cyber-dragon.net]

I would be interested to see how your theory would apply to my companies website. Approximately 80% of our hits (as tallied by webalizer) are from Unix/Mac machines. How exactly do you intend I ask them to "switch back" to IE?

They would laugh at me, and rightly so. They would also get very frustrated if my site did not work for them with whatever browser they DO choose to use.

Now, as we have established that there is a direct customer need for something other than IE, and our business requires customers be able to access the information on our site... how exactly do you propose I create a site to satisfy them?

Answer: I use standards. The fact that my standards compliant site does not look quite right in IE is irrelevant to the company as that is a small fraction of our hits and we are BETTER off asking IE users to come back using any other browser.

Who makes these standards? Who controls them? That is an issue for debate and I will gladly have it with you. What I will not debate is that they must exist. Otherwise sites become very unwieldy very quickly and it puts a HUGE burden on developers rather than where it should be, on the browser to follow standards.

See my previous post on the increasted cost of IE compliant sites if you need more info.

Re:Wrong Problem

[cyber-dragon.net]

Second point... your comment that comments about "how dangerous ActiveX is and yada yada" not mattering to management or IT is hogwash.

First... any IT guy worthy of being even an intern would add disabling of ActiveX if not outright banning the use of IE to his corporate security policy. The number of security issues it presents make it simply not worth the effort or down time of patching. You don't have to shut down other apps or reboot the computer for a firefox update... calulate the man hour savings of JUST that.

Now... managers... they care about bottom line and cost. Why on earth would you beleive they would not care to listen about the cost savings involved in using php/mysql over activex/mssql? The portability and down time reductions? All of these are things managers care VERY much about.

Re:Wrong Problem

[amliebsch]

That's what the acronym Linux stands for.

Is it really? I always thought that "Linux" was for "Linus' Unix", and that "Linux Is Not Unix" was just an insightful backronym.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Standards are meant for ***interoperability***. ... On the other hand a specification, is about ***portability***...

Hey, you just pulled that distinction out of your ass! That's not allowed!

Re:Wrong Problem

[JourneyExpertApe]

targetting IE is the obvious choice, since it is the only relevant standard (albeit a de facto one) in this context, and your pages will still mostly work on other browsers (or get their users to switch back temporarily to IE) anyway.

When you use your version of IE to test your web pages and apps, you may think you're ensuring compatability with about 85% of users, but that's not really the case. Although about 85% of people use IE, I think you'd find a significant percentage of those people don't use the latest version. So if you want to develop for "IE users", you really have to develop for IE 5.0 users, IE 5.5 users, IE 6.0 users, and, in the near future, IE 7 users. That's the price you pay for developing for a product by a company that refuses to even attempt to follow published standards, even their own.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Cecil]

No it isn't. POSIX is a superset of UNIX. UNIX meets the requirements of POSIX, not the other way around. For that matter, Windows NT conforms to POSIX too. Does that mean Windows NT is a UNIX? I don't think so.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Nexx]

First... any IT guy worthy of being even an intern would add disabling of ActiveX if not outright banning the use of IE to his corporate security policy. The number of security issues it presents make it simply not worth the effort or down time of patching. You don't have to shut down other apps or reboot the computer for a firefox update... calulate the man hour savings of JUST that.

It's all about balance, of course. If my intranet app worked with IE, I can do the following with the reasonal expectation that it will work, with minimal cost on my part:

1. webapp using my ActiveDirectory to authenticate remote users
2. being able to push IE updates, etc., in a controlled manner, so we can test for incompatibilities with intranet applications, mooting your point w.r.t. requiring machine reboots for updates.
3. being able to find support for the MS Stack.

While there are probably tools and extensions to work around that, investigating those workarounds and implementing them will merely be additional burden on my organisation. It's also a larger perceived risk of exposing the corner cases that the independent developer has not thought about.

Now... managers... they care about bottom line and cost. Why on earth would you beleive they would not care to listen about the cost savings involved in using php/mysql over activex/mssql? The portability and down time reductions? All of these are things managers care VERY much about.

It's interesting that you bring up costs, yet fail to see the following:

1. Firefox is another application my staff will have to maintain; not all corporate sites are geared to use it, and when something inevitably fails to work with it, my users will complain.
2. You're merely stating that there are cost savings by using php+mysql instead of activex+mssql. Just stating such does not make it so. If an organisation already has MS-trained developers, then surely, MS-based solution will be cheaper.
3. Security does not automatically grant you an unassailable mandate to change things. While needs of security must be taken into account at all times, at the end, it's the business-side requirements that will drive IT. By forcing all aspects of business to be subservient to security needs, we cause the tail to wag the dog.

Lest you think I don't care about security -- my professional experience has been securing applications in a financial environment.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

> Does that mean Windows NT is a UNIX?
No, because it's a subset. <- You might want to look this word up.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

>I would be interested to see how your theory would apply to my companies website. Approximately 80% of our hits (as tallied by webalizer) are from Unix/Mac machines.

He said "Follow you userbase.", not "Use IE.", you stultus.

Re:Wrong Problem

[paenguin]

Suggest that Linux fails to meet UNIX specifications, for example, and watch the apologies flow in.

Did I miss a design criteria that states that Linux is designed to meet unix specs? I don't recall seeing one...

Re:Wrong Problem

[nessus42]

Jesus H, anybody who knows anything knows that Linux is not UNIX, and nobody besides a few noobs has ever suggested that Linux was UNIX.

Well, this n00b has been using Unix for 27 years, I can assert most assuredly that Linux *is* Unix. Perhaps not by legal trademark, but by functionality it is, and in that regard, it's closer to Unix than many varieties of Unix(tm) are to Unix.

Next you're going to be telling us that BSD also isn't Unix....

|>oug

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

But some can't switch back [to IE] because it was never there to begin with.

Sure, but strategically, their numbers may be too small to be significant and the project management may not care. There is a price to being outside the mainstream when the vast majority of people are in it.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Mike Peel]

But 'Linux' is just 'Unix' mixed around, and with an 'L' added on front. As 'L' could stand for 'Linus', I thought the direct translation was 'Linus's rearranged Unix'? ;)

Re:Wrong Problem

[Gnavpot]

Did I miss a design criteria that states that Linux is designed to meet unix specs? I don't recall seeing one...

Did I miss a design criteria that states that IE is designed to meet W3C standards? I don't recall seeing one...

Re:Wrong Problem

[Jesus_666]

Well, most versions of Unix don't conform to the LSB either! ;)

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

When you use your version of IE to test your web pages and apps, you may think you're ensuring compatability with about 85% of users, but that's not really the case. Although about 85% of people use IE, I think you'd find a significant percentage of those people don't use the latest version.

Well, at least my server logs disagree with you: the incidence of IE below 6 is almost zero for those sites I maintain. YMMV, of course.

Re:Wrong Problem

[grahamm]

But do not forget that what is the 'mainstream' can change almost overnight. To take 2 example, CP/M->(MS/PC)DOS->Windows and WordStar->Wordperfect->MS Word. In each of these cases, the then mainstream system was dominant with only a few people using the product which would become its successor. Then, almost as though someone clicked their fingers, nearly everyone was using the successor system with those still using the previous 'mainstream' product in a small minority. There is nothing to say that this might happen again, with hardware platform, operating system and/or an application.

Re:Wrong Problem

[tehcyder]

Next you're going to be telling us that BSD also isn't Unix

LIke, duh, does "BSD" look or sound anything at all like "Unix"?

So obviously they are totally different. Noob.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

A fair point, but relatively speaking, the timescales to rework a web site are likely to be much shorter than the timescales for the bulk of the population to shift to a completely different browser (other than perhaps upgrading to IE7, since presumably automatic updates and buying new PCs will do a lot of that). Assuming the decision to focus on IE rather than W3C specs was taken in an informed way, and not just out of naivete, we might reasonably suppose that someone in the management chain is keeping tabs on the browser distribution of the site's visitors, and would set up a project to support additional browser(s) as they became significant enough to be worth the cost.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll try to make this as simple as possible so your primitive mind can comprehend it:

Given Windows NT is in the set POSIX.
Suppose POSIX is a subset of UNIX.
Then by the definiton of subset, Windows is in the set UNIX.

Reducto ad absurdum => POSIX is not a subset of UNIX. There's a chance that you meant that posix defines a subset of traditional unix features, which is true. It's too bad you lack the basic language skills required to make this simple statement.

Re:Wrong Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

> No it isn't. POSIX is a superset of UNIX

Actually, it pretty much _is_ Unix, or at least its successor, the Single Unix Specification is. SUSv3 replaced POSIX as The One True Standard around 2003.

Re:Wrong Problem

[chris_mahan]

Except when it doesn't come out of your cost center.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Planned Obsolescence

[Doc Ruby]

This problem is exactly what people predicted back in the mid 1990s, when W3C was formed. I was on the IETF HTTP-WG, and even those of us on various corporate payrolls knew Microsoft's membership in a closed-door W3C membership meant Web standards would go this way.

It's a testament to the basic strength, openness and simplicity of the WWW that the W3C could continue its model for so long without collapsing itself or the Web.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[hixie]

Microsoft have absolutely nothing to do with any of the problems that are listed in the article.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Carewolf]

Except Microsoft helped design W3C this way.

I think DocRuby is suggesting Microsoft designed it this way, so it would only just be usefull in helping them win against the then dominating Netscape, and then fall over and die from bureaucratic bloat.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Doc Ruby]

Which parts of "corporate paymasters" and "closed-door membership" don't you understand?

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[hixie]

I'm a W3C member, have been for years. Microsoft is not the source of the problems there. The closed-door membership is a problem, but that's not Microsoft's fault. Nor have Microsoft attempted to abuse their position in the W3C in the past decade or so (there was an instance a long time ago, but that was quickly resolved and hasn't happened since). There are plenty of issues at the W3C, but they're not due to MS.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[hixie]

Microsoft have no part in the running of the W3C Team. If the W3C Team wanted to fix the problems that Bjoern listed, they would not find Microsoft stopping them. Blaming Microsoft for the W3C's problems is ridiculous Slashdot-flamebaiting.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Doc Ruby]

You're not a member the way Microsoft is a member. That's the problem. MS didn't create the problem, but it has used it to its advantage.

Tell me about DHTML and IE compatibility. Or general MS compliance. They certainly do help shepherd the W3C along standards directions that they prefer to beat with proprietary versions. That's what "embrace and extend" means, which has been MS's strategy since they publicly reprioritized the Internet and joined the new W3C.

I don't know how you could be part of the W3C and not see that. But those kind of scope blinders are part of the MS advantage in the way they use the W3C to game the system they've mastered.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[hixie]

Everything you've described is completely unrelated to the grievances that Bjoern listed in his mail which was the impetus for the Slashdot posting. I'm not saying that Microsoft is competent at writing browsers that are compliant (heck, just look at the Acid2 test in IE vs any other browser), but I *am* saying that the problems *at the W3C* have nothing to do with Microsoft, and could be solved, regardless of what Microsoft do.

(BTW, in case you think I might be some sort of Microsoft apologist: I think it's pretty clear from my life over the past few years that I'm not on Microsoft's "side" here.)

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[supersnail]

To be honest it is probably in the interest of most of the corporate sponsers for the standards process to stick in the bueruecratic mud,
Firstly because an unexpected change to standards plays havoc with your release schedule, and, secondly all those whizzy proprietry bits your customers are locked into would get replaced by a standards based method if the process worked properly.

Havinf said that I think the problem hear is that most of the money is being divied up by large corporations because its a "good thing" and they are not really that interested what happenstothe money. IBM, HP, SUN dont make web browsers any more (and though they do make Web servers they are pretty much legacy apps,)

So you have a bunch of corparations that dont care paying for a stanards org that doesnt listen.

Sounds like its time for the IETF to step in,

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[mabhatter654]

The whole problem is that the W3C needs corp interest, patents, and money to stay in the game. If the W3C had to go it alone, all the individual corporate "members" would gut it like a fish in the courts. The current problem is that they've stopped writing good, simple, clean specs. With all the corporate interest the specs end up being one of two things: a) a "weapon" to punish who ever is on top of an industry a the moment by the threat of making it all "free" or b) attempt to skew the specs so only corporate developers could ever actually implement the whole thing. The result is that the specs are too big to be useful, so the big players all do their own thing anyway.. just how companies like Adobe, MS, IBM, etc would like it. I'm sure it's not deliberate on the part of individual contributing developers, but when the companies don't actively back up the results of the work with shipping products (like IE which hasn't been improved for 5 years!!!) everybody "knows" where the priorities like and nothing gets DONE.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Doc Ruby]

I already pointed out how Microsoft's abuse of its W3C membership and the W3C's structure makes the Web worse and weakens the W3C. Regardless of whether Höhrmann complained about them specifically, it's true. But that's just a response to your defense of MS after I mentioned how their membership behind the closed door signaled today's inevitable mess to us a decade ago.

MS was our tipoff. They are not unique. They are just one of the corporate paymasters creating conflicts and system games from which the W3C cannot escape with its closed-door membership. Which is the general description that Höhrmann did mention.

Re:Planned Obsolescence

[Anonymous Coward]

"The whole problem is that the W3C needs corp interest, patents, and money to stay in the game."

That may be true but patents exist to protect a single implementation. By definition standards and patents exist to serve different functions in the economic spectrum. A patent is a tax on the standard. No participant wants such a tax, or perhaps a better way to say this is that any participant that has a patent that reads on a standard needs to determine whether or not the tax will slow the adoption of the standard, and whether or not the economic goals served by the standard are more valuable to the patent holder.

Grassroots efforts do exist...

[Cherita Chen]

There are grassroots efforts out there. If you care to look, you can find them

Re:Grassroots efforts do exist...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, efforts exist, and bless the WaSP and the WSG and all the children of Jeffrey.

But the problems outlined in TFA are not addressed by your link. It's fine to say "Standards are Good, Here's How to Use Them" as WaSP does (and as I do, on a small scale). But if the standards themselves are bit-rotting, and the tools for measuring compliance are broken, and no one is minding the store, then good intentions and bootstrap education are only going to get you so far.

Having said that, I am aware of one genuine potential alternative out there, and if there are others, please launch the URIs.

(PS: Reading between the lines of the last paragraph at that link makes me think that you, me and Björn might not be the only ones concerned here...)

All hail Flash.

[supabeast!]

This sort of crap is why more and more web development is going to be heading to Flash. It's bad enough that the two major browser developers can't get it together and give us full implementations of the W3C standards, but the W3C itself is a nightmarish group of technocrats arguing over what crazed esoteric implementation path the next versions of XHTML and CSS will follow.

As a designer, why should I give a damn about the W3C and its standards when the W3C can't even get it together? Why should I spend my days debugging issues caused by convoluted standards piecemealed together by a bunch of wacky nerds when I can just fire up Flash and just lay out websites however I want to? I'm sure that people can give me the usual speeches about open standards, accessibility, etc., but I don't see that kind of rational thought in the work of the W3C. What I see when I look at the standards they churn out reminds me of Stallman and HURD - well intentioned, but unlikely to ever produce something that most people want to deal with.

If the W3C can't get it together, XHTML/CSS are going to fade away as more and more developers get sick of esoteric markup languages and Flash will conquer the web.

But hey, at least Adobe seems like a better overlord than Microsoft...

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a designer, why should I give a damn about the W3C and its standards when the W3C can't even get it together?

As an user without a broadband connection, why should I give a damn about a site written in Flash that takes several minutes to load when almost every other site uses plain HTML?

Re:All hail Flash.

[GotenXiao]

You're exactly the kind of person I love to hate. "Oh, I can't use that, so I'll use this, which is just as bad if not worse."

First, Flash is as closed as closed can be. Second, it's completely proprietary. Third, Macrodobe only really support Mac and Windows for the Flash Player. Still no version 8 for Linux (and they themselves have announced that there never will be an 8 for Linux), while 9 is betaing for OSX and Windows.

I'd rather use the standards which have been "piecemealed together by a bunch of wacky nerds" rather than using something which limits people to using X with Y on Z running P which Q made you pay for because R told them to.

I may like some of the things done with Flash, but I really don't think it's well suited for doing full websites. Intros, sections of navigation, maybe. But it's too much of a resource hog, too bloated, and I hate not being able to navigate using the keyboard.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a user _with_ a broadband connection, why should I give a damn about a site written in Flash that takes several minutes to load when almost every other site uses plain HTML?

Go ahead and contribute to the internet's growth into a horrid cesspool, if you really want.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Xugumad]

Well, if you want to produce websites that happen to work on a fairly limited set of browsers, why don't you just makes a PDF and get the whole thing over and done with?

There are very good reasons why you can't just lay a website out however you want, namely, it doesn't make sense if the final render target is something you don't expect. Like, oooh, I dunno, paper.

The web is designed for accessibility. It's intended that anyone can read your site, and that it will degrade fairly well for browsers that support less features. If that's not important to you, fine, but stop claiming you're producing web sites if you're just making large Flash documents.

Please?

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash will never take over the web for multiple reasons, but on the forefront is accessibility. On top of that, AJAX keeps gaining momentum and I beleive that a lot of things that are currently written in Flash are going to go the way of Javascript (AJAX).

Re:All hail Flash.

[GoatMonkey2112]

You're right that Flash is pretty good if used correctly. The backlash you see is mostly from the flashing annoying ads that everyone knows as what Flash is.

The real problem I see with Flash is the cost of entry. Last time I checked Flash was $600. Alternatives to making flash files are not nearly as good.

Re:All hail Flash.

[8ball629]

Flamebait anyone?

Re:All hail Flash.

[Angst Badger]

I have to agree wholeheartedly.

I've been developing web apps since "web app" meant CGI scripts, and if there is one thing that smacks me in the face each and every day, it is what a tremendous pain in the ass it is to develop web applications compared to desktop apps, thanks in large part because of the hodge-podge of ad hoc technologies that have been thrown at the problem, generally because some narrow corporate interest (Sun, Microsoft, Adobe) wanted to make wheelbarrows of money, or because some bunch of technology evangelists wanted to reinvent the wheel yet again (insert alphabet soup of competing languages and standards and frameworks) without benefit, apparently, of ever having seen a real wheel in the first place.

More than ten years after the initial wave of enthusiasm about the web, it is still impossible to sit down and design a complex web application with the ease that has long been normal for desktop applications. And that is not because of an inherent complexity involved in client-server application development, especially in an age when most of that complexity can be handled by mature database software and other back end apps. Developing web applications is like punching yourself in the face, hard. You get used to it after a while, but in the long days between (admittedly generous) paychecks, you can't help wonder if it might not be better to go back to writing software in an area where the end product isn't mostly digital duct tape instead of waiting endlessly for vaporous standards to be finalized and implemented. One can only take so much pride in being highly skilled at compensating for broken (and generally undocumented) toolsets and ill-considered technologies.

I'm not sure Flash is the answer, but on the other hand, it wouldn't be the first time that a so-called "90% solution" ended up becoming the de facto standard because no one else could get their shit together. It's certainly preferable to spending hours looking for the magic combination of XHTML and CSS parameters needed to lay out a damn page the same way in five different browsers.

Re:All hail Flash.

[mattwarden]

Talk about non-sequitur. If you think that Flash is a valid alternative to W3C recommendations, I don't think you really understand what W3C's purpose is. It's much broader than the narrow efforts of Flash, which is only available to personal compuber based browsers with a plugin.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, if you want to produce websites that happen to work on a fairly limited set of browsers, why don't you just makes a PDF and get the whole thing over and done with?"

Well said!!
I've a cousin who is a web/flash developer who is a nut. While I like the stuff that's coming out of flash, most of his clientele involves "companies" who want this sort of stuff. However when it comes to actual content delivery, who wants to deal with flash?

XML is where it's at, and the reason why W3C is having a hard time is because you have companies who are arguing over how they can get the advantage over another company's product. Look at the mobile web standards and it's a convoluted mess between cellphone manufactures and their different Web language formats like XHTML basic versus XHTML mobile profile. WML is archaic but at least backwards compatible with everything current.

Everytime I talk to certain proponents to anything new and flashy I think back to a recent conversation to a gentleman who was doing research on fiber optic installation in the area. While granted, fiber would be great, especially considering the neighboring "technical" communities, I asked a simple question. What about the impact on the area? traffic, construction etc....
He told me it would help, because people would use this instead of traveling places.
my mind actually went numb because I did not think a highly intelligent person would reach this conclusion from my line of questioning. My line of questioning was in reference to how well the eco-friendly groups would react. In addition, how would the construction impact the area. Prior to getting permits for doing any form of construction (this includes laying fiber) they take a look at how it'll effect the immediete area, from noise level, traffic and etc...

My guess the research done has been primarily one sided in the BENEFITS of such an infrastructure but not at the COST of doing so. While I'm all for advancing technology, if the community doesn't want it or is split over this, then it needs to be debated properly. I'm all for federal funded stem cell research, as long as Dubuya Jr. and conservatives are against it, then the nation itself cannot support the research. Fortunately, states such as California are willing to go ahead on this. That's how it is sometimes.

When something is desperately needed then it gets created, but when something that is not so important, wait till the dust settles and don't worry about it so much. This frustration over at W3C is just a bunch of people jockeying for authority and power.
In the end, a someone will always come along and do something different anyway. Then we'll see a better standard.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Chelloveck]

First, Flash is as closed as closed can be. Second, it's completely proprietary. Third, Macrodobe only really support Mac and Windows for the Flash Player. Still no version 8 for Linux (and they themselves have announced that there never will be an 8 for Linux), while 9 is betaing for OSX and Windows.

From a business perspective:

1. First, who cares? As long as I can use it to achieve my end, what difference does it make whether it's open or closed?
2. Second, proprietary is better. You only have to target a single platform without worrying about quirks of different interpretations of the spec. There is only one interpretation, and only one player to worry about supporting.
3. Third, 99% of the people run either Windows or OSX. So 1% doesn't get my message. I don't care. Reaching that 1% is not worth doubling the development and support costs.

Mind you, I'm just playing Devil's advocate here. I don't think much of Flash to begin with, and I use Linux so I'm in that unsupported 1%. I'm a big fan of portability. But you have to admit, the prospect of developing for a single, consistent platform is very seductive, especially when you look at the marginal cost of reaching those few extra people.

A couple other benefits from the non-technical end of things. Flash is harder to reverse engineer, so it's harder for the merely curious to poke at the soft underbelly of your web site. It's not perfect, but obscurity is security when you're only concerned about keeping the masses at bay and don't care about the occasional person with actual skill. Also, the designer has complete control over the Flash presentation. None of this "hope the browser renders is properly" nonsense. Everything is pixel-for-pixel the way it's supposed to be. What-I-See-Is-What-You-Get. Non-technical designers want to control everything about the presentation; they want to provide a uniform "experience" to the end-users. We geeks don't care about that, and really prefer it the other way around. Decouple the medium from the message and we're empowered. I can put the message on my Palm Pilot, or play it through a speech synthesizer, or present it in ways the designer never dreamed up. Many designers prefer Flash simply because we can't twist their message to another medium.

I'm not saying that these reasons are right, just trying to point out other perspectives.

Re:All hail Flash.

[RingDev]

While flash adds are annoying, the most backlash I see from flash is using it as a navigation system.

-Rick

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

First, Flash is as closed as closed can be.

Not really. You can obtain a licence to download the Flash specification to read. It could be secret.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

First, Flash is as closed as closed can be. Second, it's completely proprietary.

Huh, those open implementations of flash must be a figament of my imagination.q

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

First, Flash is as closed as closed can be. Second, it's completely proprietary.

Third, you can't get the source code. Fourth, you can't compile it yourself!

Re:All hail Flash.

[QuasiEvil]

Oh hell, let's just call it a day and turn the WWW into the W3D - World Wide Word Doc. That's what many corporate intranets have become anyway - talk about incompatibility and complete lack of usefulness. I've spent hours and hours trying to convince people that a Wiki is a fairly good tool for collaboratively building documentation. My own group didn't need much prodding, since we're mostly a Unix and embedded group, but everyone else has been a challenge.

The argument from others was, "Why can't I just use Word? Why can't I make this text use blue *insert stupid looking font here*?" It's nearly impossible to convey to them that when it comes to documentation, it's about organization and content, and there's nothing that beats writing and publishing in essentially plain text. It forces the author to think more about clear, logical content, and in the end, allows it to be used on any platform and to be easily searched.

Flash is much the same way in my book. Most of the websites I've seen that use it extensively have poor content or organization and are trying to make up for it with whiz bang neato bits made with Flash. Need a menu? Guess what, there are great ways to either do that with pure HTML or a combination of DHTML and Javascript. Why do people feel obcessed to implement simple things in complex and incompatible ways?

Re:All hail Flash.

[flooey]

Why do people feel obcessed to implement simple things in complex and incompatible ways?

Complex, possibly, but Flash is far from incompatible in the modern Internet. The most recent numbers from Macromedia (which may not be entirely accurate, but probably aren't all that far off) are that if you restrict yourself to Flash 6, you can reach 97% of the world's end users. Assuming that's accurate, if your site works properly on both Internet Explorer and Firefox, but not on Opera or Konquerer, you would have more people for whom your site breaks than if you had put it together in Flash.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

"in the end, allows it to be used on any platform and to be easily searched."

See that from the point of view of someone for whom a computer is a black box... it's the responsibility of software writers to make stuff like this work, and there's no damn reason why we can't! MS (and almost everyone else) have some reasons why they won't, but that's different, and asking people to understand all the technical, political and commercial reasons why not is frankly too much. It just causes unnecessary frustration. They just want to write their TPS report and use blue Comic Sans for the section headings, because they like how it looks.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Yvan256]

The W3C doesn't make the browsers. Yes, sometimes their specs are vague at best, but at least we have guidelines for the browsers.

As for Flash, it's not available for all platforms. There's also some people who turn off plug-ins because of Flash. I, myself, don't want to see Flash banners. I also don't visit websites done Flash even if it's only the navigation done in Flash. IMHO, Flash should only be used for online games and such.

Also, by using Flash you're blocking visitors using something else than a computer, which will soon become quite a good chunk of users. More users than Macs + Linux, I'd have to guess.

It's fine if it's for your personnal website and that you don't care, but for something like a business website, cutting even 5% of possible customers is simply insane.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Dracos]

I wish I had mod points to repeatedly stab you with.

Flash will never conquer anything except the minds of more graphically-centric "designers" such as yourself. The people who don't understand that the web is fundamentally about text, which is accessible, can be converted to non-visual media (aural browsers), can have semantics applied, and is not bandwidth intensive.

Bang! Shiny! Animated! Gradients! BFD? What's that tiny pixel-font text read at the bottom? Brash and obnoxious presentation adds nothing to the actual information it obscures. This is when I close the window (er, tab) on your site.

Also, if the web wasn't about text, then there would have been a corporate binary format war in the mid-90's, which means right now you'd be trying to figure out why some VB macro that does OLE twiddling is mangling your flash in www.yoursite.com/default.doc, and hoping Office doesn't crash for the 17th time since the top of the hour, because everyone knows Office can barely deal with complex debugging of web pages. [/hypothecial]

Flash is capable of being pretty (when the "desiger" shows taste, restraint, and has some respect for the user), but it is incapable of being accessible, and more often than not has horrible usability.

KHTML, Gecko, and Opera are leaps and bounds ahead of IE (even IE7) when it comes to standards compliance. The other problem with the W3C is that all these standards are created in a vacuum of theory. It's been largely up to the browser vendors to implement all the pie-in-the-sky recommendations and expose the flaws.

Now, unless you plan on welcoming Your New De-Facto Standard Corporate Overlords, I suggest you start hoping the W3C pulls its head out of its ass soon: it's the only organization we have.

Oops, I'm sorry... you apparently already drank a few gallons of the Macromedia Kool-Aid.

Re:All hail Flash.

[MonsoonDawn]

God how I love you Flash fan-boys. You've been beating this horse for years now. Guess what. It's still dead. Yes, Flash does have a place on the Web but it's not as a complete replacement for markup, stylesheets, and scripting. Flash is niche and always will be despite the fact that it's installed on 9x% of machines. I've been building corporate websites, web-based advertising, and web applications for software and technology companies for 15 years now. I've happily worked with some of the best Flash designers and developers in the US. Flash has never been a threat to my job and I don't see that ever changing.

Re:All hail Flash.

[hao2lian]

There's a weblog by a Flash developer about Flash on Linux. It's on Movable Type, so you know it's hardcore devotion.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

These do seem reasonable from a business perspective. They will be losing customers like me who don't use Flash, but they may be willing to accept that loss. Aren't there laws about handicapped accessibility though? Maybe those only apply to government websites?

I still think that ideally the content of a website should be accessible to any user running software that supports the bare web protocols and markup languages. It may not make sense from a business perspective unless it is legislated (or enforced), but I think it is the right thing to do nonetheless. It could be chalked up as part of the "cost of doing business on the web." Many people may not be able to afford the latest proprietary software (factoring in the cost of a supported operating system like Windows, for instance, even if Flash itself is "free"). Should they be put at a disadvantage because of this?

Is Flash use necessary or merely "flashy"? Businesses probably see the flashiness as a means of being "competitive", in which case the use of Flash will be inevitable until online businesses are forced otherwise.

The fundamental problem that has given rise to wide usage of Flash, I think, is that HTML (and therefore, the web itself) was never intended to dictate presentation of content, whereas businesses want to do exactly that. That is the really fundamental mismatch, and it seems the problem won't really be resolved until HTML itself is replaced by something that is designed to allow for dictation of presentation. This is why I hope SMIL really takes off (especially content-creation tools that support SMIL output).

Re:All hail Flash.

[nazh]

The W3C doesn't make the browsers.

They don't? http://www.w3.org/Amaya/

Re:All hail Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost of entry is now free with the introduction of Flex2. Its a much better way to create Flash stuff; no mucking around with the timeline or screwy environment and other developer-unfriendly features.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Yvan256]

Oh yeah, forgot about Amaya. But still, to be honest, I'ver never seen it in server logs.

In any case, let me rephrase that: "The W3C doesn't make all the browsers". My point is still valid.

Re:All hail Flash.

[Ant P.]

As a user with a broadband connection, I don't really give a damn either way since none of that crap loads in my browser without my explicit permission. What really pisses me off are brain-damaged sites that use JS/cookies/infinite redirects where a hyperlink would get the job done just as well.

Re:All hail Flash.

[hkmwbz]

I used Flash 7 for a while, until I noticed that more and more sites started breaking. I upgraded to Flash 8 because I heard it was out and fixed those problems. However, people who don't get these tips from others will keep seeing broken sites because their Flash plugin is outdated.

Those 97% will only be reached if you build for a sufficiently old version of Flash...

Re:Puh Leaze

[uchihalush]

Thats 6k only for Profit Free Organizations, its far more expensive for big companies. Though you are correct in that even at 65k/yr, it is pocket change for all large companies

Slow and cumbersome

[Null Nihils]

One thing that bugs me about the W3C is their apparent lack of recognition for newer extensions to Web technology. They seem to keep leaving a huge gap in what Web standards support while companies like Microsoft implement a closed, proprietary, platform-dependent kludge to provide that functionality. Its understandable that a cross-platform, developer-friendly solution for new capabilities should take time, but the W3C seems 15 years behind everything. Web Standards are indeed in a sorry state, and have been for some time. Just getting people to recognize the CSS standard is a headache, and things like rounded corners are still a long way off.

This is one area that a more open, participatory model is sorely needed. Look how far the Linux kernel has come in the past 15 years! And then look how far Web standards have come... not far, in my opinion (The CSS 3 spec is taking how long? And will get implemented in most browsers when?)

I think we, developers and Web-savvy alike, can do much better. But we have a lot of work to do... the Web has become very balkanized but it is still a market that has more wiggle-room than, say, the Operating System market. After all, Firefox is has gained significant marketshare and it still seems to be growing...

At any rate, TFA's seem to be punctuating a sentiment that will hopefully motivate people to move Web Standards forward sooner, rather than later.

Re:Slow and cumbersome

[Carewolf]

The CSS 3 spec is taking how long? And will get implemented in most browsers when?

Well, they need to finish CSS 2 first. CSS 2.1 has fully replaced CSS 2 which was buggy and CSS 2.1 have recently been pulled back from Candidate Recommendation to Working Draft. At this rate it will be non exiting in a year!

Re:Slow and cumbersome

[Anonymous Coward]

...but the W3C seems 15 years behind everything...

Dude, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
15 years ago the world wide web hadn't even been announced.
Care to check out this usenet post?
That's right, 15 years ago the only publicly accessible web server
was http://info.cern.ch/ and even this one wasn't
widely known outside of CERN at the time...

Re:Slow and cumbersome

[Bogtha]

the W3C seems 15 years behind everything.

Internet Explorer 7, which hasn't even been released yet, will not support large sections of the CSS 2 specification, published by the W3C in 1998. If you think the W3C are behind everybody else, then I believe you are only looking at the bits and pieces of their specifications that are actually implemented by the browser developers. With that twisted reasoning, it's logically impossible for them to be ahead.

Just getting people to recognize the CSS standard is a headache, and things like rounded corners are still a long way off.

Rounded corners are in CSS 3. Browsers haven't finished implementing CSS 2 yet. What's the point in the W3C racing even further ahead when the lack of browser support means it won't make any difference for years to come?

The CSS 3 spec is taking how long?

CSS 3 is a group of specifications, not a single specification, and some of them are ready to be implemented. So the answer to your question "How long?" is "Already there."

Re:Slow and cumbersome

[hixie]

CSS2.1 went back to working draft because we got some 100 or so comments on it when we last went to CR. If you read Bjoern's original mail, he pointed out that some W3C groups weren't dealing with comments -- well, the CSS group is one of the few groups that _is_, and that's why it's taking a long time for CSS2.1 to be completed. You can't have it both ways: either we listen to your feedback and fix the spec, or we ignore everyone's feedback and make an irrelevant spec.

Re:Slow and cumbersome

[Carewolf]

I know. I was trying teach the fact in humorous way.

So far everytime I've started that CSS 2 is not a standard yet, people keep pointing at CSS 2 - Recommendation or CSS 2.1 - Candidate Recommendation.

Re:Slow and cumbersome

[hixie]

I would just call it a standard and be done with it. ;-) It's far more mature than any other W3C document ever released (maybe except the XML 1.1 spec, which isn't bad, all things considered). It's definitely being read by Web browser vendors (including MS) and being treated as the normative reference. The fact that it has the label "Working Draft" is just an artefact of the W3C Process, which, IMHO, is yet another example of a W3C problem.

Re:Puh Leaze

[Red Flayer]

Good luck with that. 6k is a drop in the bucket when you look at the big picture, but when you look at departmental budgets, it's a different story. Particularly when you're looking at membership fees and dues. Few trade groups charge fees so large, and without a demonstrable impact on the bottom line, or on worker productivity, most controllers I've come across would red-flag and deny that expenditure out-of-hand.

This holds true especially for private companies -- ownership sees that as six grand taken out of their pockets.

standards shmandards

[The Queen]

As long as clients ask for shiny spinning mouseover widgets and marquee scrollers on their crappy company homepages, and as long as us designers need their money, standards will continue to be meaningless. If Client X clicks on his little blue 'e' and sees what he wants to see, Designer Y gets to eat that week. I can suggest that their choices are bad, but the customer is always right (and I must quit bitching before he takes the project to his nephew who'll do it for free)...

Truly, I'd LOVE to be able to tell a guy, "No, sir, we can't do that. It's not supported by any of the current browsers." And then deliver a clean, stylish Zeldman wet dream.

Re:standards shmandards

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're having a problem with clients taking their projects to their nephews, then you either need a better class of client, or a serious skills upgrade.

Re:standards shmandards

[Bogtha]

As long as clients ask for shiny spinning mouseover widgets and marquee scrollers on their crappy company homepages, and as long as us designers need their money, standards will continue to be meaningless.

It's a myth that animation etc is non-standard. Sure, there are non-standard ways of doing things like that, but there are standard ways too. It's rare to find something that simply can't be done with compliant code.

Re:standards shmandards

[KevinIsOwn]

I agree that you generally can find a compliant way of doing things. The rub, of course, is getting it to work on more than one browser...

Re:standards shmandards

[jonwil]

One of the problems with standards in web design is the number of PHBs etc that say "this has to work in IE 5.x" which means all the stuff MS did in IE 6 towards standards is meaningless.

Re:standards shmandards

[Sithgunner]

ok, for people like you who need money out of web, please keep getting the money.
for people who do it for fun/hobby and people in the working groups can start thinking a better way, so stop telling your need for money are in the way of web development. Webs aren't just for the corporates.

Re:standards shmandards

[cerberusss]

I can suggest that their choices are bad, but the customer is always right

Man, what's with the bleakness and the jaded talk? There is a middle ground here, don't you see? Of course, the customer is always right, but that doesn't mean that you can put in some of your own inspiration. Maybe put in a little graceful degradation here and there, a little convincing the client that he also should support blind users, or users that use a browser on a mobile phone, etc. There's some EXTRA business here and guess what: you can put in your own creativity as well.

And don't be afraid to tell them. If a client says "NO, I want it like THIS and THAT". Reply something like: "that's fine, however, our designers need some degree of freedom to be able to crank out the best designs -- I can't guarantee that everything will exactly be as you requested."

Open version of W3C?

[MoFoQ]

Does this mean that an open version of the W3C will come about?

Re:Open version of W3C?

[Anonymous Coward]

This just in:

Theo de Raadt could be heard mumbling about sticking a fork in W3C and creating an Uber secure version of W3C called, wait for it, OpenW3C.

PS. All donations can be made payable to Theo de Raadt :)

Needs some competition

[Chris Graham]

This kind of chaos is typical of academia. There's no profit motive, no distinct customer to serve.
What we need is to open up the standards market and encourage some commercial competition between standards. Standards that cannot create a profit will go out of business, whilst new, more profitable standards will reign supreme. With 100 standards competing for developers and corporate sponsors, us web developers will get the choice of the semantic swimming pool that serves each of us best. Personally I always thought that the sexual overtones of 'head' and 'body', and especially 'foot' had no place in a standard, so I'll be renaming them to 'first', 'second' and 'third'.

Re:Needs some competition

[linvir]

You think the words 'head' and 'body' have sexual overtones? Wow! There really is no accounting for taste. Wait, no, weirdos: there's no accounting for weirdos. That sounds a lot more accurate.

Re:Needs some competition

[Mr. Hankey]

No way, 'first', 'second' and 'third' have way too many sexual overtones. Just suffix each word with 'base'. There's no place in a standard for this kind of filth.

Re:Needs some competition

[PinkPanther]

Wait, no, weirdos: there's no accounting for weirdos.

I think that should be: there's no way to count all the weirdos

Re:Needs some competition

[falconwolf]

This kind of chaos is typical of academia. There's no profit motive, no distinct customer to serve. What we need is to open up the standards market and encourage some commercial competition between standards. Standards that cannot create a profit will go out of business, whilst new, more profitable standards will reign supreme. With 100 standards competing for developers and corporate sponsors, us web developers will get the choice of the semantic swimming pool that serves each of us best. Personally I always thought that the sexual overtones of 'head' and 'body', and especially 'foot' had no place in a standard, so I'll be renaming them to 'first', 'second' and 'third'.

Good idea, let's Balkanize the internet even more than it is now.

Falcon

Re:Needs some competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of 'top', 'waist' and 'buttocks'...

Bureaucracy sucks

[realmolo]

The W3C, as far as I can tell, never accomplished much at all. And you know why? They didn't have an actual PRODUCT.

If the W3C wanted to set standards for browsers, then they should've been MAKING A BROWSER. And open-sourcing it. At the very least, they should've been creating "rendering engines" that could be plugged into the various browsers on the market.

Thankfully, the Mozilla team seems to have picked up the slack in many ways.

Re:Bureaucracy sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody who ever tried Amaya would agree with you, no product, at least not a usable one.

What a letter!

[Rob T Firefly]

That's one hell of a grievance note. Well-written, well thought out, and it makes its points well. That time I stuck a note to the convenience store owner's door raising certain questions regarding his personal pedigree as a result of his mother's alleged affection for certain types of sea otter before setting my uniform shirt on fire in the parking lot and never going back, sort of pales in comparison.

Re:What a letter!

[dubl-u]

That's one hell of a grievance note. Well-written, well thought out, and it makes its points well.

No denying it. And I'm inclined to trust him a lot more then some average joe, if only because he has not one but two umlauts in his name. Is it because northern Europe produces heavy hitters out of proportion with its size? Or just because of the heavy-metal umlaut effect?

Nah..

[vancondo]

I wouldn't really worry about that. The fact is that we have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from the machinations of the wicked.

The w3c isn't relavant anyway....

[haplo21112]

...they are way behind the curve, the innovations and recommendations for standards of the innovations have no parity. The largest market share holder for browsers doesn't fully support the recommendations anyway, and appears not to have any intention to in the newar future. Even when a recommendation is published and closely followed much of it never makes sense to anyone except its designers.

Inorder to be fully usuable a recommendation should have examples throught of making use of the things being documented and much more explict definations of what is expected output/results of making use of an element of the recommendation. But alas NO....

Even the people's Champion Mozilla/Gecko/Firefox does fully, cleanly and totally impliment recommendations that have existed for years. And even if it did the 8000lb gorilla does even less in the standards compliance department. Mean hell the java/ecmascript standard hasn't changed much in years and it still reqires hacks to support both browsers at once.

CSS is even worse...hell they don't even in all cases provide the same events support, and how long has that been standardized.

Nope the w3c will remain ineffectual (which in my opinion probably contributes to their lackadaisical attitude) until the standards start getting properly, cleanly and fully implimented, otherwise whats the point of having standards and/or improving them.

The current state of things is like having 3 almost indentical light blubs, one that is designed to the socket (works pretty much all the time), one that is a hair to small for the socket (works for the most part but once in while due to climate variations loses contact, sputters a little might need adjustment from time to time to keep working), and one that is a hair to wide (you can get it into the socket but it might crack doing so and need to be fixed/replaced alot, might need s a little forcing to get lit up in the first place).

Re:The w3c isn't relavant anyway....

[Anonymous Coward]

The current state of things is like having 3 almost indentical light blubs, one that is designed to the socket (works pretty much all the time), one that is a hair to small for the socket (works for the most part but once in while due to climate variations loses contact, sputters a little might need adjustment from time to time to keep working), and one that is a hair to wide (you can get it into the socket but it might crack doing so and need to be fixed/replaced alot, might need s a little forcing to get lit up in the first place).

Unless the socket you are using is one of those that were designed to fit the lager or smaller perfectly, which you can't tell just by looking at it because they still pretend to be the same type of socket.

Adobe and standards

[truthsearch]

Right, the same Adobe that had a well known university professor arrested for making a speech? Yeah, they have my vote for overlord...

Anyway, if you don't like one standards organization it doesn't mean you should bundle yourself up in a proprietary binary format. Write a new incredible standard and people will support it. Or go help start a new standards organization. Your solution isn't a solution. It just contributes to the problems.

Re:Adobe and standards

[supabeast!]

"Anyway, if you don't like one standards organization it doesn't mean you should bundle yourself up in a proprietary binary format. Write a new incredible standard and people will support it."

You're missing my point. Designers who use Flash to avoid the hassles of XHTML/CSS aren't likely to develop new standards of their own. And why do so many people expect designers to care about open standards? Many, if the the majority, of design applications - Quark, Illustrator, Indesign, Maya, and so on - use proprietary standards. Aside from simple printed products, much of the world's digital creative output ends up on proprietary standards - CD, DVD, AAC, WMV. Openness is the exception, not the rules, and to many people, there is little, if anything, sinister about proprietary standards. Given that, if the web standards crowd expects people to give a damn about open standards, much less use them, they need to do a better job of putting on a big happy face and getting along with the rest of the world.

When I go to the Macromedia/Adobe web site, I'm greeted with a lot of well-written information for designers and technical people. The applications come with great documentation built-in. It's all happy, and pretty, and user-friendly. At the W3C site I get buggy validation tools and a bunch of not-too-useful, esoteric documentation that rarely covers practical aspects of web design. That's not the kind of stuff that wins people over - especially when developing for open standards tends to require more knowledge and effort than the alternative.

Re:Adobe and standards

[Anonymous Coward]

You place too much faith in popularity. While they are not intrinsically evil, file formats have and will continue to the lever by which major corporations attempt to lock in customers. The fact that everyone uses a certain file format doesn't make it OK - migration and preservation are made much easier when formats are open and documented. Even if the documentation isn't pretty and shiny.

W3C can't win here

[Opportunist]

The main problem here is that everyone who's in the "online biz" views the web as a tool to enhance their own leverage on their market share. MS tries to tie more parts of Windows into web apps so Windows has a leverage against alternative operating systems. Oracle tries to push their "web access enhancing" tools to gain market shares in the online database market. And I wouldn't be surprised if Apple was trying to get iTunes somehow into a webified form so they get a leverage on their online music share.

Nobody cares about the web or compatibility. Actually, everyone is trying its best to create as much incompatibility as possible.

W3C is standing in the way of big enterprises. Its very existance is a nuisance (not enough for a danger, but a nuisance) to the leveraging attempts of the big players.

So they have a really, really hard time. There's as far as I can judge nobody with big pockets on their side, but a lot of cash against them.

Tim B-L

[Alomex]

I've been highly critical of Tim Berners-Lee leadership on the W3C. He established a structure that sidelined individual, mostly-disinterested members and replaced them by corporations interested in log-jam and difficult implementations that keep the small players away. The W3C was from the get go the antithesis of the IETF.

Tim then jumped into the dubious "semantic web" runaway train, full of inflated promises but bereft of actual results. The "semantic web" is high-risk research best left in the hands of academia. A standards body organization should be focusing on how to make the web better today, by improving on the current protocols, not on day dreaming about HAL-like computers.

Re:First Post!

[__aaclcg7560]

There's no mention on the W3C website that Slashdot moderators are XHTML complaint. Thus, your first post is not XHTML complaint. :P

This 'problem' started in the mid-90s

[DeeDob]

As a developper, i never knew what to aim for when designing web pages. Even in the mid-90s so this is nothing new.

I develop my pages for Netscape or for IE or for what the W3C says it SHOULD be.

Result: I developped for IE first, then made it work for Netscape and never bothered with the W3C.
Clients and people don't need code that works as "standard" when no one is able to correctly view the results of that "standard".

IE had some proprietary elements working. I remember however that the W3C had no "standards" for those functions. The standards came later and the W3C said that the way Microsoft implemented those features was "wrong". As Microsoft, do you really want to re-code your thing because someone came with a standard too late?
Same thing with Netscape and it's DHTML vision of "layers". The W3C standard came too late and Netscape's "layers" were deprecated. Developper's work going to waste as they have to re-invent the wheel.

When a company sees a customer need and fulfill it, why do the W3C need to analyze that need afterwards and come up with a totally different version of what's already available instead of expanding on it? It just waste the browsers developpers time and the web designers time so much that nobody cares about the standards anymore.

Re:This 'problem' started in the mid-90s

[dvice_null]

Developers need the standard. Imagine that you would need to make a webpage for a single browser and make sure it is valid html and css and that's it. It would save a lot of work. That is why I make my pages first standard, then I make sure they look good with Firefox (as it does pretty good work with the standards) and then fix problems what IE might have.

It is a lot easier to make web pages for Firefox than it is to make them for IE. And if you write valid code, it is a lot easier to find simple typos and errors from it with a validator. There are still bugs in Firefox and it doesn't fully understand the standards, but they are fixing those bugs as fast as they can. That is one of their main goals.

> As Microsoft, do you really want to re-code your thing because someone came with a standard too late?

If Firefox gains enough market share, it doesn't matter what Microsoft does with IE. After that web pages could be written so that it doesn't matter what they look a like with IE. That is why I like Firefox also. It has potential to be IE killer.

If Firefox would have the monopoly in the browser market, it would still be better than IE having it, because
- It is open source (with obvious advantages)
- It is available for multiple platforms and doesn't tie you on single commercial platform.

Re:First Post!

[dwayner79]

Not accourding to W3C
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fyro .slashdot.org%2Farticle.pl%3Fsid%3D06%2F07%2F18%2F 1725252%26threshold%3D-1

Many such efforts at W3C, Microsoft's weapon.

[expro]

Even if Microsoft greatly warps the standard to their own so-called liking, do not expect them to live by them. Their own distortions of the standard become the very things they ridicule in public and use as reasons to reject/violate standards.

More of these desired standards to not occur precisely because to Microsoft it is a weapon, and we wind up working on silly things to displace more-legitimate web standard undertakings. What will SOAP ever do for anyone?

Esoteric?

[Infonaut]

esoteric markup languages

XHTML and CSS aren't esoteric. They are widely understood and widely used. They also don't lock you into a proprietary content creation tool and a proprietary viewer. I'd rather not put the whole future of the Web in the hands of a single company, no matter how good their products.

Re:Esoteric?

[supabeast!]

"XHTML and CSS aren't esoteric. They are widely understood and widely used."

That's A very good point. I probably should have used something along the lines of "obtuse" instead.

The W3C, Microsoft..

[Anonymous Coward]

..and the rest are why I'm currently reading Slashdot instead of working.

Oh, boy! CSS! The W3C says this, IE does that, Firefox does that!

Seriously, I repent. I'm one of 'those' people - you know, the kind that can spew C at you and have it translate directly into nightmares that will haunt you and eat away your sanity for all eternity. I used to make fun of the web weenies. HTML, feh. Learn a real language, y'wee pansies!

Now, though, with modern 'technology' (if you can call it that).. Sirs, I apologize. My hat is truly off to anyone who dares to eke out their living as a web designer. How anyone can get a site to do anything with the black morass of conflicting standards and implementations, and make clients happy by doing it, is far beyond me.

I'm now going to back in my cave and hug my compiler, and thank it for not being the terrible insanity that has been visited upon us by the W3C, Microsoft and Netscape.

Re:First Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

CSS and SVG should have been enough to close W3C for the next 3,000 years and detain all people involved in these incredibly fucked-up "standards". (In the case of SVG, I suspect that the W3C-members Adobe and Microsoft created a bloated, horrid mess to allow their own formats to gain more traction. CSS was just done by clueless assholes.)

Herding cats

[Anonymous Coward]

Two major issues here:

1) W3C working members are generally overworked, uncompensated, over-tired people who work elsewhere for a living - and attend "meetings" to help their effort or employer - the W3C stuff is generally not "on the radar" WRT their real jobs.
2) Getting a room (virtual or otherwise) of engineers/developers/designers/programmers to work together and come up with a single, simple solution in a reasonable period of time - is very similar to herding cats.

Re:Possible solution? NO

[drDugan]

this accepts the premise that people shuold be competing with companies, and in this the people will always lose.

people need to STOP assuming that companies have the best interests of regular people in mind - it is not the case.

simply stop supporting w3c and build a new system. let the governement try and stop the people again

One word example of how out-of-touch they are:

[hesiod]

Tables.

Why the fuck is this "YRO"?

[Megaweapon]

Whose "rights" are being challenged here? This is just about politics in a standards committee. When the government comes swooping in and takes over things then we'll talk.

Re:Why the fuck is this "YRO"?

[stry_cat]

Whose "rights" are being challenged here? This is just about politics in a standards committee. When the government comes swooping in and takes over things then we'll talk.

You better wake up now. As soon as the government can say "look here is yet another failure of the free market, where a private group has 'failed' to provide the service we think it should. Clearly we need a big bloated government program to take this over." Then it will be too late to talk the government will be in motion and we'll all get screwed.

Re:Puh Leaze

[Bozdune]

65K is not pocket change. It's VP-level discretionary spending at many companies, and you better believe it gets questioned. AS IF people just write checks. Cheesh. If that were true, I wouldn't have to fight tooth and nail for every contract we get.

Really?

[javachip]

I think if you can get Opera and Mozilla on board, then I think Microsoft will be forced to follow.

Really?

best of both

[ChristTrekker]

While I generally agree, I do hope WHATWG takes a few pointers from XHTML2. Some of the ideas (e.g. replacing <br/> with <l></l>, blockcode) make a lot of sense to me. Just because web pages have become light-weight applications doesn't mean they aren't still used as documents too. Why can't we have both views represented?

Re:best of both

[NutscrapeSucks]

You know what? Who cares.

HTML is barely adequate for the physics papers it was designed for, but it got us this far, and there's not really any pressing need to clean it up (especially versus other long standing problem areas, like FORM).

Re:best of both

[thogard]

the original IBM ML wasn't even adequate for the simple text formatting that it was designed for and there was a good reason that IBM abandoned it nearly 30 years ago for anything except applications that were stuck with it.
XML is a bad way of parsing according to any applicable research paper over the last 50 years.

The new standards are a complete mess as well. One example is why is CSS a completely different parsing style than HTML?

Re:best of both

[Anonymous Coward]

CSS was out before XSL and XPath, which is why CSS Selectors look nothing like XPath. It should be XSL-like with XPath matches on nodes, and declarations of style. Eg,
<tag select="h1 | h2 | table/th">
  <font-size>xx-large</font-size>
</tag>

As far as migration we could have another link rel, and scripts that would convert the XML syntax to the CSS one (perhaps using Javascript so old browsers could parse XML and build up their own CSS). The main problem I see is that XPath allows stepping all over the DOM whereas CSS Selectors can only descend.

Re:best of both

[hixie]

We (WHATWG) can't really replace
with anything, because
is in such heavy use (see http://code.google.com/webstats/2005-12/elements.h tml -- it's the 8th most often-used element, per page). <blockcode> doesn't seem hugely useful either, you can already do it in HTML4 using <pre><code>...</code></pre>.

But if you have any suggestions, please do send them to the WHATWG list -- see http://whatwg.org/mailing-list -- the group is open to all feedback, even if we don't necessarily agree with all of it! :-)

Re:best of both

[hixie]

CSS is a tree decoration language. HTML is a document tree language. Why would they use the same syntax? That's like saying C++ should use the same syntax as XML. Or that PNG images should use the same syntax as e-mails. You use the right syntax for the job.

Re:best of both

[mdfst13]

"Requiring two languages just to display the document is a ridiculous and cumbersome dirty hack."

No, it's a natural evolution of the model. The dirty hack was to try to embed the display code in the markup.

You use XML (in the form of XHTML) to store the data. You use the CSS to control the display. Since the two are actually different languages, you can't mix them. This allows you to swap out the CSS for different CSS and get a completely different look. Check out http://csszengarden.com/ for some examples of the power of this model.

The other thing that you can do is swap out the raw data and use the same CSS file. I don't have an example site for that, but it is a potential use. If you add javascript into the mix (a third language), you can get wondrous things. Properly used, it makes designers more productive. Instead of building ten million font tags, they can just make all elements the same class (with the same font).

If you want to have a single language, you can. Just call it image map. Use only two HTML tags: map (plus area of course) and img. Make the entire page an image and make various regions clickable with the image map.

Re:best of both

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... I'd expect more from you Hixie. We're not saying C++ should have the same syntax as XML, and why don't you throw in a car analogy while you're at it?

The problem with inventing your own format for a style is that we need a wholey new software stack. Because of this we still don't have CSS validators (complete ones) because the CSS syntax is so unlike anything out there. We could have had Schemas for CSS years ago if it were just a set of tags like XML. And we'd have a properly thought-out node matching language rather than CSS Selectors.

Comparing bitmaps to emails is just ridiculous Hixie, I'm guessing you know that CSS is a brain-dead syntax.

CSS is node matches and properties. XML is more than capable of representing that and you know it. The style names are separate from the syntax, and they could be represented in something that builds upon other software rather than having pointless indefesible differences.

Re:best of both

[ChristTrekker]

You certainly don't have to yank <br> out, but it could be deprecated. Given the history of deprecation when it comes to HTML elements, that should ensure it another 10 years of usefulness. ;) The idea of marking lines, rather than line breaks, makes it possible to do neat things like apply styles to individual lines - great for poetry, or code.

I really don't like the idea of using two elements for a block of code. You can do it that way, but should it be done that way? Why are <q> and <blockquote> separate elements now? Because one is phrase level and the other block level. They serve different purposes. The same distinction applies to code. Adding <pre> to get that effect is, to me, an ugly hack.

Both of these would be trivial to implement if they were added to the specs. Moreover, they increase the semantic expressiveness of HTML - which is my primary disagreement with WHATWG's approach (as I perceive it): it doesn't fix the "brokenness" of HTML as used purely for document markup. Maybe W3C efforts on XHTML2 are focusing on extending the semantics to the detriment of web applications, but doing the opposite isn't the best approach, either. That's my whole point - why can't we do both?

Re:best of both

[hixie]

I can think of very few elements that have been deprecated from HTML and have actually stopped being used. Off-hand I can think of maybe four, and even those, people still use them often enough that browsers have to implement them, and still have to fix bugs with them. Introducing an element that does the same as another element but is not supported in existing browsers would just make life for browser vendors expensive without making the Web a particularly better place.

<blockquote> is a separate element because it has to contain blocks. <blockcode> does not, <blockcode> is only allowed to contain code. Thus <blockcode> is just like a <pre> block that contains code -- <pre><code> -- whereas a <blockquote> is like a quote that contains multiple blocks -- something which you can't do with an inline element like <q>.

The HTML5 spec will (or already does, I forget) say that <pre><code> is how you do a block of code. So it will no longer be a hack, it'll be the rule.

If you have concrete examples of how HTML5 fails to fix HTML's "brokenness", I urge you to send them to the WHATWG list, where they will be taken into consideration. http://www.whatwg.org/mailing-list

Re:best of both

[hixie]

It would have been hard to use XML for CSS, since XML came out in 1998, and CSS came out in 1996.

The grandparent didn't suggest using XML for CSS, but HTML. That's what I was arguing with. Using HTML syntax for CSS makes as much sense as using it for JavaScript. HTML is a tree structure language. CSS isn't a tree -- using a tree structure language for it would be a bad language design decision.

Re:best of both

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh you're right about the dates, and that makes yours a defensible position in 1998. Perhaps it's even defensible for few years after that in order to overcome the transition period while XML tools matured. But CSS2 didn't take off until the web standards push in the early 2000s, and now 6 years later we have no such excuse. We're paying for it in the lack of CSS parsers and validation utilities... CSS requires it's own software-stack and we can't just build upon existing technology like Namespaces, Schema/RelaxNG, EcmaScript*, etc.

Differences in formats are good when there's a reason however pointless differences should be removed. CSS is just unreasonably different for no good reason. That's the problem. And now we can't integrate with other software, and we're paying for it in the lack of tools. I gave an example of a possible syntax to prove that CSS and XML aren't so disimilar.

Will we go another 5 year with CSS being "different" and lacking these tools?

*direct node manipulation of the CSS file

opencroquet capable of replacing all web standards

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.opencroquet.org/ -- p2p shared 2d/3d metaverse software is as capable as any combination of web publishing and web browsing software.

developers should concentrate on "web n.0" metaverse projects like these instead of segregating the web across different web sites, platforms, and protocols.

Old Saying...

[Kaenneth]

The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

Noone is holding a gun to web developers heads demanding W3C compliance. (I hope)

If you want wide accessability, use the simple, well proven stuff (HTML); if you want flashy state-of-the-art stuff (Flash, ActiveX, Java), it's not going to work everywhere.

If your boss wants both, get more money, more staff, or take more time. But explain to the boss that double the developers does not double productivity, and they may be better off chosing between Gizmos and Functionality.

Re:Old Saying...

[westlake]

they may be better off chosing between Gizmos and Functionality

The boss will take the Shockwave Gizmo if it delivers his target audience. Standards compliance for its own sake is of no interest to him.

One more reason why...

[Dracos]

The W3C should be absorbed by a more stable, functional, and respected international standards entity such as IEEE.

While I believe in what the W3C does and produces, that's irrelevant when they produce next to nothing over the course of six years (which many thousands of people work with daily).

Re:One more reason why...

[Bogtha]

they produce next to nothing over the course of six years

You're way off on that one. List, by date, of W3C technical reports.

openw3c

[MoFoQ]

At least it's to the point...much like that new movie...what's it about? "Snakes on a plane" (sarcasm)

Re:Puh Leaze

[ngibbins]

The cost of membership in W3C may be as low as USD6k, but the cost of participation is much higher. I've been a member of two W3C working groups, and they've both taken a day each week to keep up-to-date on developments. Add in the cost of face-to-face meetings, and any organisation that expects to actively participate in the W3C will be facing a much higher cost (including staff time, etc) than the $6k figure you quote.

Re:First Post!

[__aaclcg7560]

CSS was just done by clueless assholes.

That would explain why I'm spending so much time fiddling around with my CSS file.

Darwin and the Tao of Standards

[micromuncher]

There are de facto and de jure standards. De jure designates what the Power says, while de facto designates what happens in practice. W3C started as de facto; that is, here is HTML, it exists, let's run with it. Now it is de jure; that is, the consortia sets up the standard that may not be based on a practical business need.

So... as with any consortia; the standard is only as good as the problem it solves. If it is adopted, it survives. If it doesn't, it is yet another academic exercise. It won't get adopted without a need.

The problem; as I see it from other working groups; you get forced into directions that meet a specific vendors need that result in stuff unusable by the masses or lowest common denominator (equally unusable).

So usable standards survive. The consortia (or group) producing the standard needs to rely on classic AoW credos; know the environment, know the problem, know the end users/consumers of the solution, and know yourself.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

how real standards are created...

[3seas]

popular usage

NOT corporate impositions on the public/

Re:how real standards are created...

[Skadet]

Hmm. You have a valid point (see also: Microsoft), but does it logically follow that it's the way things should be?

Re:how real standards are created...

[multipartmixed]

Um, no.

Real standards are created by one or more guys. They get together in a back room, and think up shit. Then they type it down, and send it to Jon Postel for comments.

Jon posts it, then other guys (like me) look at 'em, and say, "Hey, cool, let's run with that.". So, I guess the second part is close to your description.

So, you see, Jon -- RTFA and look at the void you've left. RIP.

Consider the Next w3c?

[LifesABeach]

It appears that eating, and paying the rent has become a major issue for the W3C folks; I understand.

But for the next group that will become the next W3C-sub-2? Could the language specifications be a little more clear to read? Designing those spec's can't be that complicated in this day and age.

W3C Validator and standards really help

[Tandoori Haggis]

A colleague had a web page working for IE 6.x
He was puzzled as to why certain features would not parse with Firefox, rendering form submission useless.
No suprise then, given that he verified his work using IE 6.x
I recommended that he validate the html using the W3C validator.
The validator advised that there was a problem with his header. I suggested that he follow the proscribed format for his header following W3C guidance. My colleague followed that advice and solved his problem in 5 or 10 minutes.

W3C gets my vote for enabling html to work across platforms. If only more developers would use it.

Re:W3C Validator and standards really help

[Anonymous Coward]

"Proscribed" means forbidden. You mean "prescribed."

Re:W3C Validator and standards really help

[Tandoori Haggis]

You are correct. I meant prescribed. Thank you.

Re:Actually...

[symbolic]

...making a browser while using it as a reference in the design of real, live, honest-to-goodness, websites. Then they might see how weird some of the standards (their implementation) might seem to end-users (the developers).

More web development heading to flash?

[Chuck Chunder]

Really? From here it seems like the days of websites in general experimenting with flash are pretty much over. It seems like Flash has found it's niche in adverts, games and Hollywood websites and is pretty much confined to that.

Re:More web development heading to flash?

[Achromatic1978]

You're kidding, right? Look at any number of design company websites. Automotive manufacturers. Flash has nowhere near lost its momentum.

Howl!

[jefu]

For those missing the signficance of the second link's title, here are the (apt, I think) opening lines of "Howl" by Allen Ginsburg :

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix

Are you sure about that?

[confusednoise]

Looks like they may have some interest in "web as application platform" after all:

http://www.w3.org/2006/webapi/

Re:Actually...

[westlake]

Then they might see how weird some of the standards (their implementation) might seem to end-users (the developers).

The end-user is not the developer. The end-user is the kid in the public library or his Dad at home.

Re:First Post!

[jdbartlett]

Nope, Internet Explorer would explain why you're spending too much time fiddling around with a CSS file.

WC3 out of touch with the needs of users

[edxwelch]

I always thought that the WC3 were concentrating on really complicated solutions that were not really needed, while ignoring the simple obvious stuff that was missing.
Take the example of Frames. An awful lot of web sites consist of a number of pages which all have a common main menu. Now the problem is if you hardcode the HTML into each of your pages you have a maintence problem, because the main menu is going to change a lot over time. So there are 2 solutions to the problem, neither of them are ideal:
1) Use frames. Well, we all know the problem with frames. You loose functionality of the forward and back browser buttons, along with various other problems
2) Use server side scripts to create the pages dynamically. In my opinion, this is wrong. You shouldn't need to write code just to display simple static pages. You're introducing an unnesecary dependancy.

The obvious solution to the problem is to "fix" frames. In other words, introduce a standard for including webpages within other web pages where the browser treats the combined page as just one single entity. This would be a very effective and simple solution.
This is just a example of a common problem with HTML, there are many others,
which will probably never be addressed, just because they are to ordinary to merit the interest of the WC3

Re:WC3 out of touch with the needs of users

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you never heard of Iframes or better yet Ajax?

Re:WC3 out of touch with the needs of users

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the silliest thing I've read, even on Slashdot, for a very long time.

You're right about 1) and 2), but your solution is to completely change the way browsers, websites and HTML all work?

Your genius solution just shows you don't know about this:

3) Use server side INCLUDES

conversation over.

on a tangential note..

[sshore]

Know what a swedish lightsaber sounds like?

Björnnnn!

Flash websites aren't websites.

[soliptic]

Yes, I said it: "Flash websites" aren't websites.

Flash is basically either used as an application, or an animation format.

If I put up an application as an .EXE (or whatever Linux/Mac/etc use) or a Java applet, or if I put up an animation MPG/AVI/whatever, is this a website? No. It's just an application/animation which happens to be delivered over HTTP. Sure, hopefully it plays with a plugin in the browser, rather than needing to be saved to disk and run with a separate mouse-click / key-press, but that doesn't fundamentally change the facts.

Same with Flash. Just an application/animation which happens to be delivered over HTTP.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this. Sometimes little applications (like this) or animations (like this) are absolutely great, flash is a great technology to build/deliver them in, and the web is a great way to distribute that flash. I have no problem with that.

Doesn't make it a website though. A website (IMHO) is 'onion skinned', I can take the basic text and parse it how I want. There's no assumption it gets rendered in a browser as opposed to downloaded, parsed, searched, transformed, translated. I can take the content but ignore the styles. I can take the text but ignore the images. I can open a page in the current window, in a new window, in a new tab, save it to disk, pipe it to a script. Flash does none of that. So to me, I honestly see "flash website" as essentially a contradiction in terms.

/rant

Re:Actually...

[gnud]

No, the user of the standard would be the developer. The user of what a browser that (hopefully) implements the standard, would be the kid in the public library.

Zeldman is Exaggerating

[I'm Schepers]

"Some of the best minds working in web standards have been quietly or loudly abandoning the W3C. Bjoern Hoehrmann is the latest."

It's interesting that Mr. Zeldman links to an email in which Bjoern explicitly states that he is only leaving the QA Dev team, and is focusing on the W3C CSS and WebAPI Working Groups, where he is still active.

"Beholden to its corporate paymasters who alone can afford membership, the W3C seems increasingly detached from ordinary designers and developers."

I will note that Bjoern is one of many invited experts in the W3C... you don't have to pay to participate.

"It remains a closed, a one-way system."

As for me, I'm an ordinary developer, and my small consulting company ponied up the dough to join the W3C because we thought that it would be worth it to have a hand in leading standards and having a say in how things are developed. My new workplace, 6th Sense Analytics, will also be joining, because they feel the same way. Oh, and we didn't join at the 50K level, we joined at the reasonable 6K level, and I have never felt like we were treated as second-class citizens. If companies care enough about the standards they wish to adhere to, they can easily get involved in the W3C and mkae the changes... the more hands doing work, the better.

"To be fair, the W3C solicits community feedback before finalizing its recommendations. But asking people to comment on something that is nearly finished is not the same as finding out what they need and soliciting their collaboration from the start."

This statement is predicated on the idea that there is no way to ask for features and present use cases to the appropriate Working Group, a claim that Mr. Zeldman must know is incorrect. The SVG WG, for example, is basing many of its new features on author and user feedback over the last several years (from both the official W3C SVG list and the Yahoogroups SVG-Developers list), as well as taking into account the needs of its member organizations.

Promoting other standards besides those from W3C, like microformats, is great. There's no need to be so disingenuous and inflammatory about it, though. Mr. Zeldman has no talkback on his forum for me to refute his claims, so I had to post this here. I think he's becoming increasingly detached from ordinary designers and developers. Okay, that was a cheap joke... couldn't help myself.

Re:Zeldman is Exaggerating

[hixie]

Yeah, Zeldman is exaggerating. Bjoern isn't. And what Bjoern wrote is far more damning than what Zeldman wrote.

Re:Zeldman is Exaggerating

[I'm Schepers]

Hey, Hixie-

It would be silly to argue against Bjoern's (and Zeldman's) assertion that these services should be more reliable.

But I wasn't commenting on Bjoern's statements, which stand on their own merits (though he does cite Zeldman on the twin accusations of expense and exclusivity of the W3C). I just don't like to see FUD spread around.

-schepers

Re:Zeldman is Exaggerating

[Zoop]

If the process is so open, easy, and welcoming, why do you think the sentiment expressed elsewhere in the comments exists? Why are alternate forums opening up?

Is your argument that it's simply a bad public that doesn't deserve a better set of standards, or are there any systemic problems with the W3C that you think contribute to the dissatisfaction being shown, fairly or unfairly?

Re:Zeldman is Exaggerating

[I'm Schepers]

"Is your argument that it's simply a bad public that doesn't deserve a better set of standards"

Please don't use crappy, simplistic misinterpretations of my statements to spread yet more FUD. I happen to be part of the public, as I already stated, and I wanted better standards, so I took up the task of pitching in a few months ago.

Any design-by-committee process is going to be unpalatable to some percentage of people, even inside that organization (as Bjoern, Hixie, and myself all are). Does that mean that it is fatally flawed, just because it doesn't satisfy everyone? No. But does that mean that we should just throw up our hands and ignore those that are displeased? Also no. Systems change, and I believe that the W3C is changing, even if it's not as quickly as some would like. Bjoern and Hixie are among many individuals working within the W3C who are very vocal about tightening up various specifications, and it is having a positive effect.

Please also remember that the W3C is not a monolithic entity. It is comprised of dozens of Working Groups, hundreds of companies, and thousands of individuals, each with their own set of agendas. Not all groups or people operate in exactly the same way, and it's naive (or duplicitous) to characterize them that way.

Finally, I'm not an apologist for the W3C. I'm just relating my own experiences and my own opinion. I have my own issues about some things within W3C. That's one reason I joined. But I'm all for other standards and forums making the Web better. I just think that the W3C is a key piece of that puzzle.

Re:Zeldman is Exaggerating

[RCanine]

While your analysis of the e-mail is astute, I think you missed Zeldman's larger point, that this e-mail is just one piece of evidence in growing frustration amongst rank-and-file web developers with the W3C. Other developers have agreed.

I used to be a member of some W3C mailing lists, but got frustrated by the lack of momentum. Most of the e-mails were deflected as, "someone has already proposed that, read the archives!" or "that is not implementable." Constrast that to WHATWG, where my comment on a spec not granted me a reply from that spec's author, but also gave me a bit of enlightenment into the process.

I was a flag carrier, a proselytizer. Now I just read mozillazine and the Opera blog to see what's coming. It does seem to me that lately all the W3C is good at moving on is publishing standards other people wrote.

Re:Zeldman is Exaggerating

[I'm Schepers]

"While your analysis of the e-mail is astute..."

With all dues respect, I wasn't referring to Bjoern's email, as I explicitly stated. I was only addressing Mr. Zeldman's claims on his uncommentable blog. And I didn't miss his larger point; in fact, I contrasted it directly with my own personal experiences.

I think it's a shame that you and others have felt locked out of the input process for some specifications. I think this should be addressed. I don't know how much more clearly I can state that. That being said, the Working Groups I'm in (one of them being WebAPIs, with Bjoern and Hixie) are trying very hard to be responsive. Time is at a premium for all of us, but we do take input seriously.

As for publishing standards that other people wrote... many would argue that that is the entire point of a standards body. Some think that *no* language design should take place inside a standards body, only standardization of existing implementations and practices to ensure interoperability. That is almost the entire goal of the WHATWG specs that you cite, in fact. (Back me up here, Hixie?) I prefer a mix of standardization and innovation myself, and that's what I bring to the table.

Also, it's worth noting that the organizations you now look to for innovation and leadership take an active role in the W3C! That's how and why it works.

I think you don't really want that

[leighklotz]

grasshoppa wrote: I never understood why web standards aren't maintained by the folks that actually are writing the browsers. Membership would require a browser with, say, x% market share.

I think (1) you have this, because any vendor who is a W3C member and has a product out there has credibility on many important issues and (2) you don't necessarily want just that: the establishment of standards can lower the barriers to entry, which would make for more browsers with smaller market share (and thus more diversity but better interoperability) and bring to consumers the benefits of competition for good implementation of the common ground, and "innovation" in the other areas. Unfortunately, if you limit membership to large existing vendors (your x% solution), you get members who want to shut out new products and innovation, and simply want to preserve the status quo (which is web terms is called "IE Bug Compatibility"), while the go off and "innovate" in other areas to try to make non-commodity products that they can charge for (InfoPath, XAML, just to pick on MSFT but there are other examples).

Disclaimer: I was editor of a W3C recommendation, but my opinions here are my own (duh).

Re:I think you don't really want that

[hixie]

Which members want to shut out new products and innovation and simply preserve the status quo? I can't think of a single vendor who has that position, and I've been involved with pretty much all the browser vendors...

Re:I think you don't really want that

[leighklotz]

Ian, we've had this discussion before so I don't expect to change your mind, but as for public references I'd cite these:

http://www.w3.org/2004/04/webapps-cdf-ws/minutes-2 0040601.html#topic19.6
followed by
http://www.w3.org/2004/04/webapps-cdf-ws/minutes-2 0040601.html#topic26.4
where one individual said "For the basic stuff, other than XML specs for well-formed and verifiable standard XML, we decided not to use any existing standards, and we made a decision that our priority in the design would be support for direct mappings to .NET objects."

So I think this shows at least this one vendor prefers to do more of its innovation in new formats not based on standards.
Given the economics of their product base, it's hard to blame them.

Given the large investment required for IE compatibility (proper implementation of "quirks" mode, underspecified areas, bug compatibility, etc.), it's not surprising that vendors who have achieved it are reluctant to support anything that diminishes the value of that investment; again, from an economic standpoint, it's hard to argue with this. I won't cite specific examples from the same minutes, but you can surely find this sentiment there.

Re:I think you don't really want that

[hixie]

You're confusing three things here.

The .NET stuff is the first thing. That's irrelevant, IMHO, to the W3C. .NET is like Win32, MacOSX Core APIs, Gtk+, or any number of other OS-specific APIs. It makes no sense for an OS vendor to use the W3C's standards as a base, it has nothing to do with the Web.

The second and third things are the two approaches that were discussed at that landmark workshop: do we throw the baby out with the bathwater and start afresh, or do we build on existing standards. Neither of these approaches implies shutting out new products and innovation, nor do tehy involve preserving the status quo at the expense of new features. The second approach *does* require that we carefully consider extensions so as not to break existing content, but that is just the mature way of doing things -- building standards for the entire planet's emerging electronic communication media is a task that requires us to be responsible.

I still don't know of any browser vendors that wish to stop the specs from evolving. I certainly don't remember that being the message we put forward in our joint presentation at that meeting, and I think the WHATWG work we've done since then is evidence enough that plenty of "innovation" can happen without sacrificing the billions of pages already on the Web.

Re:I think you don't really want that

[leighklotz]

Yes, you're right, we build on existing standards: XML, CSS, XPath, XML Schema data types...

As for your point about breaking existing content, it perplexes me that you keep making it.

But, let's try a test.

1. Visit http://www.microsoft.com/ in FireFox and note the results.
2. Install the XForms XPI from http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xforms and restart Firefox.
3. Visit http://www.microsoft.com/ again and see if adding XForms support to the browser breaks existing content.

Thanks!

Re:I think you don't really want that

[hixie]

Now try adding conformant XForms to http://www.microsoft.com/ and load the page in IE.

Re:I think you don't really want that

[leighklotz]

Your point was that adding XForms to browsers breaks the entire web at theoretical level, in a way that's fixable only by chucking XForms and implementing something else instead, but I just demonstrated that was wrong. In both theory and practice, it's possible to add XForms support to a browser and not break the rendering of existing web pages.

So in response you say that IE doesn't implement XForms, a W3C standard, which is true, but true in a different way that's fixable: if IE implemented XForms (or if IE were more modular so that the formsplayer.com plugin was seamless), then it would be a done deal, and there's no theoretical problem.

Here's an interesting piece of opinion from Kurt Cagle, at O'Reilly, about how IE can move forward to XHTML and XForms.
It's based on some one-on-one discussions he had with top Microsoft developers.

http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2006/05/why_xht ml_can_save_internet_ex.html

Re:I think you don't really want that

[hixie]

No, that wasn't my point. But I'm tired of making my point over and over again so I'm just going to let the market make my point for me and go back to working on the real solution instead (HTML5).

Huh. Jeffrey Zeldman linked to my blog.

[DZR]

Dude, I'm like famous. So now I have two readers.

When techs get too tech for their own good.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is good tech and then there is nazi tech that gets so anal over itself that it make things such an incredible pain in the ass. You have to wonder if everything just needs to return back to KISS.

"Public Outcry" My Ass

[ClamIAm]

From the summary:

Public outcry against the workings of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is growing

Okay, so we have one guy who was part of the W3C and just resigned. Then we have some other guy bitching on his blog. This is not "public outcry". In fact, it's barely above the level of scene drama.

If this momentous, deafining outcry was really happening, we would have seen multiple things like this happening recently. This is not the case. Instead, we get an out-of-the-blue submission by some guy who appears to have nothing to do with the W3C or web standards at all. And of course, the Slashdot ethos of sensationalism and minimal fact-checking are in full force, so we get a (most likely) unedited blurb that is factually incorrect and extremely partisan.

The W3C should focus more on design

[PapayaSF]

Very good points, and it relates to my gripe about the W3C: it shortchanges design.

When the web was invented (thanks, Tim) its academic/scientific roots were plain, and unsurprisingly it seemed best suited for putting scientific papers online. Soon designers got more control over type and layout in the form of "tag soup" and tables for layout. Most page layouts involve multiple columns and headers and footers, and we could usually achieve that with nested tables. Plus, pages could be made "liquid," adjusting to the width of the browser window and expanding to fit the content: e.g., more content in the center cells would automatically push the footer down. And this worked (more or less) the same way in all browsers. Huzzah!

Then we got CSS, and many new things, especially involving type, became possible. Huzzah again! And yet in abandoning tables for layout, some things became harder: the creation of a multi-column page, with header and footer, that automatically resizes to window width and adjusts in length according to content, and works the same way in all browsers, is considered a difficult problem even by authors of CSS books! Why has this basic issue not been addressed by a standards committee? Perhaps the focus on separating content and presentation and on accessibility has resulted in shortchanging the presentation side of things?

And why can't content automatically overflow from one div/column to the next, as it can in every page layout program of the last 20+ years? And why don't we have a standard way of embedding a typeface in a web page, so that users can see actual text in the exact font the designer wants, beyond the bare handful that are common to all Windows/Mac/Linux users? I'm sure any web designer could add to this list.

Those are the sort of issues I wish the W3C were working on. Instead, they've spent a huge effort on accessibility for the disabled, and what we seem to have gotten out of it is a set of complex, unworkable guidelines. I don't want to seem heartless, but I'd like to see greater emphasis on standards for enhancing presentation for the majority of us who aren't disabled.

Re:Puh Leaze

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is the W3C doing that takes that much staff time to keep up on updates? With how slow standards roll out and how worthless a lot of the specs seem to be, what is being updated each week that takes a staffer a full day to catch up on?

Re:Puh Leaze

[ngibbins]

During the standardisation process, a standard evolves through discussion and debate, as does the terminology used in it. In W3C, much of this discussion happens on email, but there's also a weekly plenary telecon where votes may be taken. The discussion is multi-threaded and interdependent; a WG may have several dozen open issues at any given time, and a resolution of one of these issues may have ramifications for the other issues. This is especially true when a WG is trying to reconcile the requirements of more than one user community. Standardisation is compromise, and most of the time you can't fit in all the features that every user wants and still have something that's implementable. An example of such a compromise (that I was involved in) was the selection of the language features for OWL Lite/DL; add too many, or the wrong combination, and you've got a knowledge representation language for which there exists no sound, complete and decidable reasoning procedure.

You can see what I'm talking about if you look at the mailing lists for any of the larger WGs. At its peak, a WG like webont or html produces 500+ mails a month. This may not seem like much, but these were part of a deeply technical ongoing discussion, and tend to be bursty. Miss a week's mail, and you'll not easily be able to follow what's being discussed until you've caught up, nor understand how work on other issues affects your work.

The web needs a complete overhaul

[narcc]

We need a whole new set of standards for the web. As the web has grown, changed, and matured, so must web technologies. We can all admit that web standards and technologies are an absolute mess -- and they've been an absolute mess for far too long.

We have HTML, XHTML, DHTML, Java/ECMA Script, CSS, "AJAX", FLEX, Flash/Shockwave, Java, ActiveX, and uncountable variants, extensions, dead-ends (VRML), and the like. IT'S HORRID.

The advent of the so-called web 2.0 applications (built on the existing steaming-pile of standards with their inconsistent implementations) only serves to make matters worse. A recent article (I can't find a link) cautions AJAX developers to make their pages "gracefully" degrade so that the "20%" of uses with JavaScript disabled can use their pages. Unfortunately, most of these page-app chimeras degrade to a simple "turn on JavaScript!" notice.

This is to say nothing of the nearly unmanageable problem of accessibility. (Not that most web publishers actually care. The W3C accessibility guidelines are all but worthless and don't reflect the current state of the web.)

If this wasn't enough, web developers insist of using the standards in ways that they were never intended to be used! (We've ALL used tables for layout -- admit it.) Look at any random web page source and you're likely to see a gross misuse of CSS and other crimes like using images for navigation buttons that require JavaScript in order to function.

What new standards does the web need? Ones that fit the current state of the web of course!

Applications are NOT documents -- We need standards for web applications. IMO, web applications should be interfaces decoupled from the actual application. We need a standard protocol for web application interfaces to communicate w/ their respective applications so that 1) interfaces can be changed depending on the platform the application is to be used and to suit the needs of differently-enabled users 2) interfaces can be generated dynamically for the same user group and same reasons. (This is very complicated; I won't go into it here.)

There are very different KINDS of documents on the web. We have dynamic documents, interactive documents, forms, and plain vanilla documents -- each has its own place, as well as its own needs. [Insert Rant Here].

Documents have Content, Formatting, Structure, and Layout. Structure needs defined first -- Layout last (and optionally! -- so we can make pages "pretty" for most users with good eyesight/large displays and Accessible for the rest.)

Bah, we also need to stop using things like FLASH and Shockwave and instead develop reasonable open replacements for these technologies. Or just stop using the silly things! (Web applications should be able to fill the void for a good many of the current uses of Flash.)

While we're at it, let's replace JavaScript with a sensible language that can be used with the new (and clean) set of standards.

Speaking of clean, how about a simple set of standards? Each of these should be easy for the average web developer (or user, preferably) to understand. Avoid things like feature-bloat and stick with the basics. (The PDF 1.2 spec is an excellent example of a clean and simple standard that let's you do powerful things - though the web needs a format you can edit with a simple text editor.)

I'm done ranting... anyone agree with me in principle at least?

Those who don't know history doomed to repeat it.

[master_p]

The whole concept of a web browser is flawed right from the start. The web was conceived not as a distributed application platform but as a non-interactive network of connected information (hence the name 'web'). What the world needs is a remote GUI with low coupling between client and server.

15 years ago, Sun had an excellent networked GUI named NeWS, which had a whole postscript-like language used for managing GUI applications remotely. The framework was so nice that whole GUI programs could be run on the client, minimizing communication with the server. The program sent to the client could do anything. Sadly Sun dumped NeWS for the much inferior X-Windows.

Right now the web standards (HTML, XHTML, FORMS 2.0, CSS1, CSS2, CSS3, etc) are like the programming language BASIC: every possible functionality perceived as necessary from W3C is hardcoded into the language. But that does not work, as history has proven time and again. What the world needs is an OPEN DISTRIBUTED APPLICATION PLATFORM where all the functionality currently provided by W3C is provided through LIBRARIES. The standard should be a statically typed programming language with minimal constructs and few datatypes but equiped with all the latest developments in programming languages (type deduction, functional composition, closures, etc).

Clients would run the language through a special application that operates like a browser: a native window which hosts and runs the language, along with a combo box to select previously visited applications.

Servers would run the language through a VM like .NET/JVM/etc.

Compilers would validate the communication patterns between programs through their type systems.

Re:Puh Leaze

[Kopretinka]

Above the 6k a year, if a company wants to participate in working groups, there's the cost of the time of the participant and the cost of attending meetings, both teleconferences and face-to-face. These costs can easily outweigh the membership fee. And these costs grow linearly with the number of working group participants a member company has.

It's the law!

[Nurgled]

Here in the UK we have a law called the Disability Discrimination Act which, amongst other things, requires company websites to be accessible to disabled users. I find that hinting at possible legal action for non-compliance with this law is a good way to get some leverage on issues such as this. I find clients are a lot more amenable to criticisms of their suggestions when you put it in terms of "this will be bad for you because..." rather than "we don't want to do that because...".

When it comes down to it, the client is paying you because you presumably know more than them about producing websites. Although they might have some ideas of there own, I've never found a client that isn't willing to compromise if you're honest about the reasons for your reservations and the potential implications of a certain decision.

"fix" frames?

[cascadingstylesheet]

>The obvious solution to the problem is to "fix" frames.
>In other words, introduce a standard for including webpages
>within other web pages where the browser treats the combined
>page as just one single entity.

Um, we have that ... it's called "frames". You use "_top"
in your links ;)

Re:"fix" frames?

[edxwelch]

_top only specified who the frame renders, not how it behaves. You still have the same problems

Re:"fix" frames?

[cascadingstylesheet]

>_top only specified who the frame renders, not how
>it behaves. You still have the same problems

How so? If *all* your links in the framed pages are to _top, then the Back button will work as expected, no? How would some new frame-that-isn't-a-frame tag structure work any differently that framed pages where every link is _top?

Maybe I'm missing something, so please explain - I'm curious.

Re:"fix" frames?

[edxwelch]

Now that I look at the top tag closer, I see that it loads the frame into the whole window, in other words you wouldn't even be able to see the main menu, defeating the whole purpose of the execise.

Re:"fix" frames?

[cascadingstylesheet]

>Now that I look at the top tag closer, I see that it loads
>the frame into the whole window, in other words you wouldn't
>even be able to see the main menu, defeating the whole purpose
>of the execise.

Unless your link is going to another frameset. Which is exactly how some new HTML framework for frames that don't act like frames would work :)

And you still boast.

[jotaeleemeese]

YOu get it wrong, are given the correct explanation, but still are all smug about your own stuborness.

I have mantained Linux production systems for the las 10 years and not even once I pretended it was UNIX.

Re:And you still boast.

[jimktrains]

I think teh gp means that you can sit at a UNIX terminal, then move to a Linux terminal, and find only minor differences in the interface and setup, same with BSD(but that is a differnt animal all together, ). I think a better term is UNIX-like, bc as someone stated Linux Is Not UniX ;-)

Re:And you still boast.

[nessus42]

Are you going to tell me with a straight face that Linux is more disimilar to BSD than OS X is to say HP-UX or than AIX is to Version 7?

Any claims that Linux is not Unix are merely a false dichotomy aimed at perpetuating certain trademarks. They have no technical merit.

|>oug

Re:And you still boast.

[nessus42]

Cygwin and M$'s Windows Services for Unix are "Unix-like". This is in direct contrast to Linux, which is so Unix-like that for all intents and purposes it is Unix. The same cannot be said for Cygwin, for example.

|>oug

Thank you for pointing the problem Bozo

[jotaeleemeese]

THat is exactly the problem, by trying to be clever you pretty much nailed down what the issue is.

I would fire you in a bit.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were a Web designer under my direction and wrote something like this I would call you to task.

I do not want to alienate between 10% and 15% of my potential customers.
I want my websites to be easy to handle for accesibility.
I want my websites to be easily portable.

And just so you know, our corporate net bans ActiveX (no yada, yada, yada here). If you had half a clue you would know that internal intrussion is as bad, or even worst than an external threat, for the simple reason that the intruder already has keys to the front of the house.

I don't want "practical tools" that make it dead easy to shoot myself in the foot. Such cavalier attitude is completely unacceptable.

Oh, they're already listening ...

[Anonymous Coward]

and the money is already talking.
and soon the free ride will end,
then we'll be back walking again.

Independent standards body

[SgtChaireBourne]

No. That's not exactly what Microsoft is doing with MOOX (MS Office 'Open' XML). What MS has done is blow some smoke about not suing:

1. "Patent protection is contingent on a conformant implementation. "Conformant" is not defined, meaning there is uncertainty needing legal advice."
2. "There is no provision for partial implementation, meaning true community-based development is not covered until complete."

The problems with first point there are obvious, without guidelines to say what is and is not conformant, there is no way any one who takes the risk of working with MOOX can be sure that MS won't come in later and take their lunch money ... until it's too late.

The second point is more subtle. Take a look at the full MOOX spec, several thousand pages of it. Aside from the problems that much of the mark up is focused on formatting rather than structure, there is a lot missing from the spec and a lot only revelant to support of legacy document formats. It's so convoluted that the only one likely to be fully compliant is MS itself, and even then only because it is writing the specification around existing products rather than with an eye to the future. Any competitor, even one with deep pockets, has little hope of actually successfully creating a complete implementation. So, given that no one except MS has much of a chance of creating a full implementation and there are no provisions for partial implementations, it's not much of an assurance.

Just those two weak points are a real bitch, and there are more.

No. The whole MSO 2007 / MOOX thing is just spin to keep the press munching on MS press releases and press release byproducts. When you dissect the MS 'covenant not to sue', there are really no assurances. Not only are you on your own, but by attempting to implment MOOX, MS has a very good idea of what they can go after in court.

That's where you see the importance of independent standards bodies like the W3C and OASIS. Using their standards, you get what you see and there is no worries about predation later down the road.

link

[SgtChaireBourne]

The link to the analysis on Groklaw got munged. This reply is to post it.

Re:link

[man_of_mr_e]

For starters, that analysis is severely flawed for a number of reasons. The first, is that it applies only to the Office 2003 XML schemas. The second is that it is based on an invalid reading of the language. Here is the language:

Microsoft irrevocably covenants that it will not seek to enforce any of its patent claims necessary to conform to the technical specifications for the Microsoft Office 2003 XML Reference Schemas

The Groklaw analysis reads this as Microsoft will not sue you if it's a conforming implementation, but what this really says is that if, in the process of conforming to the specification (not a conforming implementation, as the groklaw article suggests) you are required to implement something that Microsoft owns IP on, then they won't sue you. That's a VERY different thing that what the Groklaw analysis says, and is in fact even farther reaching in it's indemnity than the Sun covenant, since sun only says they won't sue you for implementing any version they participate in, meaning that if Sun backs out of OASIS, then they can sue anyone for any version that comes after it.

We will have to see what the final covenant is when the OpenXML specification is published.

Re:link

[SgtChaireBourne]

The Groklaw analysis itself is spot on. It was my citation of it that was flawed. As you mention, it is for the MS Office 2003 format's specification. Currently MOOX is a big unknown. So actually the GP or GGP was flawed in claiming that MS guarantees anything at all about MOOX.

Re:link

[amliebsch]

Currently MOOX is a big unknown.

From the Microsoft Website:

Q. Does the CNS only apply to the Office 2003 specifications as it is shown on the Web site, or will it also apply to the upcoming release of the specifications for Ecma and for the 2007 Microsoft Office release?

A. The CNS currently applies to the Office 2003 specifications because they are the only ones currently available that are complete. As the up-to-date specifications are released to Ecma, they will be posted on the same Web site and we will apply the CNS to them.

I also agree that the Groklaw "analysis" is based on a (probably deliberate) misconstruing of the plain language of the CNS, which nowhere requires that software must be "conformant" to be applicable to the CNS.

Re:link

[man_of_mr_e]

No, the Groklaw analysis is not spot-on. It seems to deliberately confuse the reading of the language. It talks about "conformant implementations", but that language does not exist in the covenant. It simply says, Microsoft cannot sue you for any intellectual property related to conforming to the specification.

Re:Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

They have made a browser http://www.w3.org/Amaya/

You'd never have the chance

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

As almost everyone seems to have understood except you, all I was advocating in my parent post is considering your goals and choosing your tools and techniques appropriately. If you think you have a better plan, don't worry about firing me, you'd never be able to hire me.

And just so you know, our corporate net bans ActiveX (no yada, yada, yada here). If you had half a clue you would know that internal intrussion is as bad, or even worst than an external threat, for the simple reason that the intruder already has keys to the front of the house.

I don't care what your corporate net does; I don't work for your corporation. My employer's corporate Intranet makes effective use of ActiveX for several minor things that many of us use everyday, and not being able to do them would be a pain. If you have an internal security problem, then ActiveX is the least of your worries anyway.

I don't want "practical tools" that make it dead easy to shoot myself in the foot. Such cavalier attitude is completely unacceptable.

There is no perfect tool, no bulletproof security. Even if there were, it would be useless if its security features prevented it from doing anything useful. Everything is a trade-off, a balance between providing enough functionality and flexibility to be useful and enough security to reduce the risk of a breach.

You are welcome to err on the side of safety. For your business, and with your attitude, perhaps that is for the best. But don't make the naive assumption that what works best for you is also the approach that will work best for everyone else. Some of us like practical tools where it's dead easy to shoot ourselves in the foot, because once you've learned how to use the safety, they tend to be more powerful than the alternatives.

Re:Puh Leaze

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotcha, thanks for the response.

Don't overestimate Invited Expert status

[contenunu]

I would advise against overestimating the so-called Invited Expert status.

• You have to apply to be invited.
• They can turn you down.
• They can and will boot you if they don't like you for any reason.

Re:Don't overestimate Invited Expert status

[I'm Schepers]

True. But it's not that onerous to apply, from what I understand. In many cases, applying is simply a formality, and is often a procedural follow-on from an informal invitation. You could be turned down, although this would be bizarre if they extended you the invitation in the first place.

But again, being an Invited Expert is not the only way you can have an effect. As others have noted, formal involvement in a Working Group can be a serious time investment, but anyone is welcome to send feedback to the appropriate public list. In fact, a Working Group is required to give a formal technical reply to any comment received on a Last Call draft.

I think that it is a pretty open process in most cases, even though this can be a challenge. It can delay or even cripple the publication of a specification, which means that the W3C can't respond to real-world market pressures as quickly as many would like. Ironically, some of the people who complain that the W3C isn't agile enough are the same ones who hold up specifications on process issues.

It's not easy reaching consensus. I'm sure that's why your own WCAG Samurai initiative is a closed process. In fact, you're pretty extreme about it:

Membership rolls will not be published, and membership is by invitation only. Don't call us; we'll call you.

But as someone deeply concerned with accessibility issues, I applaud your actions in that arena.