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W3C's Role In the Growth of a Proprietary Web
Paul Ellis writes "Mozilla's Asa Dotzler has said 'It's really hard for me to believe that either [Microsoft or Adobe] have the free and open Web at heart when they're actively subverting it with closed technologies like Flash and Silverlight.' But are they really subverting it? Where is the line between serving the consumer and subverting the Web? This blog post makes the case that the W3C's glacial process should share in the blame for the growth of proprietary technologies."
Just keep in mind, there's nothing stopping web developers from using straight HTML, CSS, JPG, PNG and GIF for basic animation. If you need media, you can embed an mpeg or a simple wav file. If you need processing, you can do it as CGI/server-side, at the same time ensuring 100% browser compatibility and avoiding the hijacking the web-client's CPU. Don't blame Adobe or MS or Sun for providing closed or deeply complicated, uncontrollable technologies; blame yourself for using them.
Flash no more "subverts" the web than Photoshop "subverts" image processing, or the GPL subverts how software is published. You want to use these things, that's your choice. There are other options available that are just as useful, and in some cases, more so.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Who really owns something that you make in Flash? Just as when you write a document in Word, when you compose in a proprietary format, you hand the keys over to the vendor. You, and anybody who wants to view or edit what you've created, have to go through the One Software Company. And that's permanent; whatever DRM or platform decisions the company makes in the future will bind you as well.
I find it funny that someone (especially from Mozilla) blames the W3C for glacial process, when even Firefox 3 still doesn't have something as basic as box-shadow (with the "-moz" vendor prefix of course, since the spec is still a draft).
And Opera, which used to be the "latest" in W3C support (even draft), still doesn't support border-radius nor box-shadow in their latest version.
Like it or not, Safari is pushing W3C standards faster than Opera and Firefox combined.
As for Microsoft, they're still trying to kill the web in two ways: with extremely slow/buggy compliance with W3C standards and with proprietary crap like Silverlight.
Adobe has Flash and Air, which isn't really better except for the fact that at least they're trying to push their crap on many platforms, not only Windows.
Even Flash could be replaced on websites like YouTube if the browsers finally supported HTML 5's media tags.
Just keep in mind, there's nothing stopping web developers from using straight HTML, CSS, JPG, PNG and GIF for basic animation.
And what if they want something fancier than "basic animation"?
Flash no more "subverts" the web than Photoshop "subverts" image processing,
Apples and oranges. Images created in Photoshop don't need any special software to view. Content created in Flash does.
... or the GPL subverts how software is published.
On the contrary, GPL is meant to subvert proprietary software publishing. The difference is that the subversion is deliberate, and meant to open things up, as opposed to the closing off that Flash, which shuts things off, but only as a kind of side effect.
This is rather an old story. Back in 1995, back when Netscape was the biggest operator in a competitive browser market, they took a lot of flack for introducing non-standard features into HTML. And they didn't do it to "close off the market", they did it because they wanted to create web applications that weren't supported by existing standards, and weren't going to wait for W3C to bring the standards up to date.
Then we went through the whole thing all over with Microsoft and Internet Explorer. And because MS really was trying to control the marketplace, everybody ignored the role W3C was playing. And still plays.
virtual reality markup language. didn't think so
a standards body should be slow, not out front, writing standards for things no one knows will be successful or not
in fact, the commercial players SHOULD get proprietary, aggresive technologies out there, seeking new markets. let them play and crash and burn
then, after something proves successful, the standards body plods along and picks it up and makes it canon
the idea that the standards body should get out front, leads to standards being written for things no one uses. the idea that commercial companies won't try to capitalize on owning the technology presumes that corporations are interested in not making money. let a company write nonstandard tech. its a gamble for them, and could hurt them. let them get hurt then, and make space for things like firefox
so the whole basis for the story here is preposterous: ok, we have different browsers and competing platforms and different standards and proprietary tech. big. fucking. deal. get your head out of your anal retentive ass and deal with it
oh it takes 10 hours to program a page that should take 10 minutes to program were everyone fascistically devoted to standards? well then you wouldn't have a job genius. you wouldn't be needed. the mess you have to deal with is proof you are needed. if it weren't messy, you'd be downsized and replaced by a perl script
people who whine and bitch and moan about standards and noncompliance are motivated by the same shrill cloying need as grammar nazis. and if you understand why grammar nazis are essentially useless, annoying, and just don't get it, you understand whats up those who are so shrill about standardsthe world is a messy place. get used to it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If we did things their way we'd have perfectly rendering web pages all the time, but the content they hosted would be so dull most consumers wouldn't be interested.
That's evident by the fact that not one of the major websites out there that I can think of (facebook, google, microsoft, and even the bbc to name a few) are fully W3C compliant.
Well, there are a couple things about "compliance" to consider. First, because browsers don't always implement the standards fully or properly, you might have to use hacks to get everything to display properly in all browsers. Current web designers have to know browsers' bugs as much as the standards, so many web pages can't comply with the standards and render properly at the same time. That doesn't mean the standards are at fault. The inability to follow standards on the web is largely traceable to a single company which refuses to make a compliant browser.
But also, the real issue of standards is not to force everything into compliance at all times. It's to give a standard way of doing things so that people can expect certain things to be consistent. The point of web standards is so that I, as a developer, can write a web page in accordance with a set of rules, and then have a reasonable expectation that the page will display properly. It makes it so I shouldn't really have to worry about what browser the end-user has installed, because they should all display the page (roughly) the same way. If you wish to violate the standards for some purpose, that's fine, but then you should familiarize yourself with how that violation will effect various platforms. But, in fact, there are even standards about how formats should handle violations of the standard, and so even the violation may be... well... according to the standard.
But none of this explains to me why the standards would make the *content* of web pages "dull". If the content is interesting, the web wouldn't generally be dull. Relying on presentation to make your content exciting doesn't speak well for your content, and on the Internet, content is king.
If anything, it seems like the Internet wouldn't exist as it does today if the HTML standard hadn't been so simple and open. It allowed anyone with half a brain to make webpages and display their content. The ease with which individuals can create content is essential for the P2P "community" nature of the web. If not for that, it would be like TV-- pushed from big companies who have the resources and expertise to make it work. Even expecting someone to buy expensive software (e.g. Adobe Flash) in order to develop content would hurt the web immensely. The barrier of entry is much lower when the only necessary equipment for making content is a text editor.