The W3C Bites Back? | Hacker News Reader

The W3C Bites Back?

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20 pointstoni12 comments

I don't understand Shelley (The author of the submitted post). Shelley seems to constantly complain about the work that has been done in the WHATWG, and in particular Ian Hickson's work as editor. Shelley seems to like to use W3C process (like the format objection that is mentioned in the post) to slow things down or drown debate in process.

"Though frequently contentious, and overly bureaucratic at times, the W3C effort is the only effort where people other than Ian Hickson may have a say about what is, or is not, in the HTML5 specification. "

This is just wrong. The WHATWG is actually the easiest way to get your ideas considered in HTML 5. This is because all feedback sent to the public WHATWG mailing list is considered and replied to by the editor. Anyone can join the list. Try joining the 'public' HTML W3C mailing list some time.

"Just as important, the W3C provides the legal stability that allows all of the browser companies to freely, and safely, participate."

Funny, browser vendors seemed to do just fine implementing and contributing to HTML 5 while the W3C was busy XHTMLing there way to obsolescence.

The W3C public mailing is currently full of debate about how the WHATWG specification dares to exist alongside the W3C specification. The W3C spec is based on the WHATWG spec and future development continues in the WHATWG spec. Even if that spec was removed I'm sure someone else will start a new spec for new enhancements to HTML that HTML users and implementers agree on. That might as well continue to be the WHATWG spec as far as I can see.

What really seems to be happening is a few people on the W3C HTML list don't like the amount of influence the browser vendors and WHATWG are having on the direction of HTML. They've lost control of the what goes on in HTML and are trying to go back to the approach of large, never implemented, specs where no two implementations work the same.

It seems to me that the 'benevolent dictator' approach of the WHATWG development of HTML 5 has been much more successful in getting browsers to implement new features than the 'design by committee - but only those who pay to join' approach of the W3C that the original submission's author wants.

  Funny, browser vendors seemed to do just fine implementing
  and contributing to HTML 5 while the W3C was busy XHTMLing
  there way to obsolescence.

Exactly. Let's not forget that (in)activity (in broad sense) of W3C is one of the reasons we have WHATWG in the first place. And my gut feeling is that in any serious disagreement browser vendors will go with WHATWG, because that's where the action is.

Having perused the mailing list discussion it seems clear to me that certain entities within the W3C HTML WG (including Apple[1]) are now seeking to emphasise emerging differences (however slight or hard-won) between the W3C draft of HTML5 and the WHATWG draft of HTML. Meanwhile Mozilla and Opera have remained quiet. The timing of this debate is effective because HTML5 has recently hit the mainstream as a buzzword and people unaware of its development history will instinctively refer to the W3C.

While wresting control of the spec from WHATWG may be a worthwhile end for some in the W3C, one has to wonder what Apple could gain from insisting that only 'Portions of this specification are also part of a specification published by the WHATWG'[1], and thereby marginalising the group which is responsible for the spec's very existence and of which Apple is a prominent member.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Jun/0369...

The post you cite was sent on behalf of the three W3C HTML Working Group Chairs. While I, the person who happened to send it through my email client, happen to work for Apple, that does not make it the official opinion of Apple in any way.

This seems interesting but I'm having a hard time figuring out what exactly he is talking about. He starts out talking about the alt tag and then I start to lose him. Can anyone clarify or give some context?

I thought it was just me, not having long woken up. I've read it a couple of times now so I'm either thick (fair chance) or it's a little confusing.

Nope! Makes no sense to me either.

Not envious of the people in the specification space. Personally, I just wanna hack!

There's recently been a round of debate about whether the alt attribute for media (eg, <img alt="Foo">) should remain required or could become optional.

As I understand it, some web page creators say "some of our images don't have good logical, human-readable alt text, so why make us put in alt attributes with crappy made-up values", and other people argue that it is worth the extra effort to improve accessibility. (No doubt I've butchered both sides of the argument, but that's what I was able to take away from it.)

See http://blog.whatwg.org/omit-alt for an argument in favor of making it optional, and http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/articles/altinhtml5.h... for it being required, or http://juicystudio.com/article/requiring-alt-attribute-html5... for a list of pros and cons.

The two standards groups hosting the draft HTML specs appear to have different centers of gravity with regard to this issue, and to be making increasingly snippy comments back and forth about the other's handling of the dispute.

This is pretty much a standard Shelley Powers rant. Fairly incoherent, more about making the process "fair", making sure she gets heard, and ensuring that people pay attention to political constituencies that she likes rather than that anything actually gets done.

The real question of the whole thing is how Microsoft could be given permanent chairmanship of the whole thing, where they have only ever had one goal in the last ten years, kill the browser however they can. They have discovered after giving it their best try to just ignore it and hope it will go away that they have to get back into the process and kill things that way. It would be far better to have a specification that goes forward without their approval than one that they make harmless enough that they can still ignore it while having negatively impacted the value of the whole thing.

There are three co-chairs currently, who are employed by Apple, IBM and Microsoft respectively. Paul Cotton, the Chair who is employed by Microsoft, has lots of standards experience, including as a former chair of the XML Query group. He's been very helpful in dealing with W3C inner workings, but has mostly stayed out of technical debates.

Notwithstanding the history of Microsoft's engagement with Web standards, I think Paul has been doing a fine job and I can't really say a word against him.

He has played that game for a while as these things just happen to be happening around him. He is a facilitator for Microsoft with respect to having their way with standards. If he avoids the technical debates, all the more reason he shouldn't be there. Yet somehow they object when whatwg characterizes a removal as being politically motivated.

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