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Ogg Vorbis / Theora Language Removed From HTML5 Spec
Rudd-O writes "It's official. Ogg technology has been removed from the HTML5 spec, after Ian caved in the face of pressure from Apple and Nokia. Unless massive pressure is exerted on the HTML5 spec editing process, the Web authoring world will continue to endure our modern proprietary Tower of Babel. Note that HTML5 in no way required Ogg (as denoted by the word 'should' instead of 'must' in the earlier draft). Adding this to the fact that there are widely available patent-free implementations of Ogg technology, there is really no excuse for Apple and Nokia to say that they couldn't in good faith implement HTML5 as previously formulated."
Actually, except for raster images (eg, the friggin pictures of stuff), I think that .svg should be mandatory. Why? As good as PNG is, it leaves a lot to be desired and it does not scale well. On the other hand, .svg will scale perfectly, allowing features like zooming to be much more effective. This would also kick svg editors in to full gear. Right now I do not hesitate to say that inkscape is the BEST svg editor available. Some other editors offer some features that inkscape does not, but it is extremely flexible and powerful. It does have some drawbacks, especially once you get into highly complex and large images (I've got a 4.4mb .svg that renders into an ENORMOUS .bmp or .PNG [120MB+ & 25MB+, respectively] that is an absolute beast to work with because it is so complex. I've got literally thousands of cloned (not copied) objects. Before I started cloning the SVG file was over 20MB, but I dropped that down a LOT when I switched to cloning objects (and that took a lot of work, but when you are using a page file just for the program you are working with to have enough memory, let alone the OS, you need to do SOMETHING).)
Personally, I prefer inkscape to any other image creation program I've used extensively (although my stint with Photoship as a image creation tool is limited). Fireworks, illustrator, gimp (ahem), and even the stuff from Xara, are all inferior in a number of regards, and especially since the only other free one is the Gimp, I'm convinced that the ROI is pretty much unbeatable.
Now there are a few things you can do in each of those programs that can't be done (directly) in inkscape (such as multiple pages or html auto-generation of drop down menus), but these are special cases.
Graphic designers may disagree, YMMV.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)