A recent post about Firefox and my general view of corporations and organizations has caused a bit of a stir. It even caught the attention of Asa Dotzler. He 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 exactly is the line between serving the consumer and subverting the web? I think the W3C should share in this blame.
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Member since:2006-05-28
Agree. Even the best browsers haven't run out of W3C recommendations to implement, and then there's IE...
Even if the WHATWG was working on HTML 12 right now, we'd still be stuck with HTML 4 quirks mode by default due to the sad state of one popular browser.
Edited 2008-07-11 06:49 UTC
Member since:2006-02-05
First of all, W3C puts out a lot downright awful standards. There are many parts that are overly complex or ambigious. Secondly, the W3C is not a independent body, it is a consortium of companies, each with its own agenda, which is a big reason of why the standards it puts out are so horrible, and why nobody can really fully implements them.
Member since:2008-02-26
Exactly, people blame Microsoft but are they the culprits? I believe you cannot really single out anybody in this mess.
First you have the original HTML; it wasn't very good to start with. Then you have the old browser wars with Netscape and Microsoft introducing extension after extension. Now Javascript. Then Vbscript. Then CSS. Java plugins, ActiveX, Flash, XML, Silverlight... Most of it is now standard and don't you dare to break the pink on green web page I wrote in 1993 with marquees, midis and heaps of animated gifs.
Nobody is innocent here.
It is amazing that we can actually use the web as it is for something.
Member since:2007-01-18
I'm not going to argue your points because I don't know that much about the W3C as an organization, but here's where we are today.
I can, with some minor exceptions, build a standard website that will work the same in Firefox/Mozilla, Opera, Safari, KDE, etc., but it will be a mess in IE 6 and 7 (version 8 is a different story). I can build a site that works in IE (excluding version 8) and it won't work in any of the other browsers.
My conclusion. While maybe IE didn't create the problem they sure as hell haven't done much to solve it either. Maybe the W3C's recommendation aren't all that great, but it seems like every other popular browser is able to support them. So why is Microsoft unable to?
As A side note. I have been using version 8 of IE and frankly it's a much more compliant browser. Even though it's still a beta program it seems to work fairly good. However, sites that work in IE 7 or older don't work in version 8 without turning on the IE 7 mode. That's saying a lot I think.
Member since:2008-03-25
I guess it's OK as long as the tools (plugins) required to run those proprietary components remains free AND we still have good enough web standard technologies allowing us to do rich web sites without those proprietary components (e.g. AJAX).
What we want are choices, and good enough open choices. We don't need everything to be open anyway.
Member since:2008-03-25
Member since:2005-07-06
Um, take a look at the w3c site and the standards and recommendations they've published. You'll find Microsoft and Microsoft employees involved in a great many of them. MS is an active and contributing member or w3c.
Member since:2006-01-06
Welcome to Kroc's reality-distortion field.
Member since:2005-07-06
If other people have other agendas, they are going to go off and do them, regardless of what the W3C are up to.
It doesn't help when things take so long for standards to become standards; just look at OpenGL and the effect that its dawdling it has had on the gaming marketplace. Microsoft jumped up and promised game companies they would no longer have to be held hostage to the slow progress of OpenGL - and offered DirectX as an alternative. As they say, the rest is now history.
The w3c is a standards committee that can make strong decisive action when required - and for it not to be held to the whims of the individual members, because lord knows, there are a number of members in there who will scuttle any possible attempt to improve the status quo.
True, but at the same time, when it takes *YEARS* for standards to develop, there are some major bottlenecks that need to be removed - lets also remember that this extension of the standard is hardly new.
Netscape did it years ago when fighting Microsoft by introducing extensions to IIRC Javascript which few took advantage of. Microsoft extended HTML with some useful enhancements (image trying to get some of those through the standards committee - no matter how good they are!) and developers took advantage of them (because they were useful).
Unfortunately it is the chicken and egg scenario with vested interest thrown in for good luck. When you are Microsoft, and your 'trojon horse' is Silverlight, and yet, there are technologies that negate Silverlight in the form of open standards - who do you think is going to win? that is why Internet Explorer is so horrendiously broken. Quite frankly, what I would have loved to see is completely throw away all backwards compatibility and make IE 8 100% standards compliant with all the web standards, and simply provide extended support to IE 7 - then kill it off in a year. I
f companies can't be bothered upgrading their internal applications and website owners are too lazy to do that job - tough is all I say.
Member since:2006-03-17
While I agree with the basis of your point, you can't ingore the fact that nearly all W3C members ARE driven by money, perhaps not the W3C organization itself. I used to work for the W3C (via the management group that ran it), and I can safely say of course money did/does have a major part to play. The participants are from companies that have their own agendas, their own products, and their own preferences - so they defend them. This is somewhat unavoidable (just like democracy being vulnerable to extremist majorities), they play the rules - well - and get their way. But I've frankly never deemed the W3C as an important group, development is progressed by the IETF, IESG, IRTF, IAB, ISOC, etc.. To me, the W3C is simply the 'corporate face' of internet development, and little more. Just another place to use buzzwords and explain them to CEO's...
..and the meetings were soooooo boring. The IETF was MUCH more interesting, with many attendees/members who participate without corporate backing. It was a place where you NEVER heard the word 'shareholder', at least not back then (1999).
It's hard to say we can blame any one group for the majority of this mess (aside from MS, of course 
), but as standards groups have no 'enforcement' to speak of - perhaps we can only blame ourselves for choosing particular proprietary software. I blame myself for caring what a webpage looks like in IE because if I focused on Netscape/Moz/et al, I could force the user to try a _BETTER_ browser and not just the crappy one they use by default. Or perhaps they would just go to a different webpage... there's the conundrum.
Member since:
2005-11-10
The W3C is an open body. Microsoft are in this body of members, yet don't generally contribute at all. The same as with Microsoft being in the OASIS group.
If other people have other agendas, they are going to go off and do them, regardless of what the W3C are up to.
Microsoft and Adobe are driven by money and the W3C is not. I cannot see placing the blame on the W3C for being mentally slow as useful when the two melodramatic villians are clearly in the room with you.
It's lack of uptake of W3C standards, because of IE. No other browser, just IE. Browsers can do incredible things now, but people are still coding for IE6 and missing out on all the flash-negating technology available and ripe for the picking.