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On one hand numbers do not mean much, but I think that releasing a 1.0 version of official library would at least help with morale and signal some completeness.

I’m sure there are reasons making fresh 0.x releases even after creating a standard format, but it was a bit disappointing after years of waiting, even before this blow by certain browser maker.

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libavif is still not at 1.0 (in fact, 0.11.1 at the time of this writing). Having a 1.0 release is good, but not relevant to this matter.

Also libwebp reached 1.0 only about 8 years after it was added to Chrome. So I don't think this is a major criterion.

That said, we are aiming to reach the libjxl 1.0 milestone within a reasonable timeframe, i.e. somewhere in 2023, preferably first half.

And Mozilla waited for libwebp to reach 1.0 before making the plunge to support it in Firefox. One of the main issues was that libwebp was willing and frequently made backwards-incompatible changes to the codec in the 0.x days; Google simply didn't care about breaking images, but Mozilla cared.

Yes, that's a problem when a format is not standardized but controlled by a single entity. JPEG XL is standardized though, and backwards-incompatible changes are essentially impossible.

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