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Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

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Re: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

#11

Post by paulojreis »

chrisseaton wrote: post #7
ChrisSD wrote: post #6

It's sad to see the relationship between WHATWG and W3C has deteriorated to this point. Trying to wrangle a standard from a "living" (i.e. constantly changing) specification was always going to be tough but I'd have hoped both WHATWG and W3C would be able to maintain a working relationship.

Is there an article with the background on this? Why do we have both the W3C and the WHATWG, and why do the W3C just copy and paste work from WHATWG, if that is indeed what happens?

http://diveinto.html5doctor.com/past.html

A very entertaining read, IMO.

Re: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

#13

Post by Latty »

kuschku wrote: post #10
chrisseaton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an article with the background on this? Why do we have both the W3C and the WHATWG, and why do the W3C just copy and paste work from WHATWG, if that is indeed what happens?

The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…

To offer another perspective.

I'd say the W3C wasted a huge amount of time pursuing quests of purity (XHTML) over actually making the web better for users. I see the value in what they were trying to do, but it wasn't letting people do the things they wanted to do on the web.

As browsers started just implementing features outside of standards in completely disparate ways because everyone was desperate for them (leading to plugin hell, apps rather than websites, etc...), WHATWG was created to try and ensure that the web remained a single thing and not a mess of things that would only work in one browser.

The web platform sprang forward massively as a result of this, with browsers implementing much more consistently and with new features tending to be implemented in compatible ways, with real progress being made.

This lead to the W3C specs becoming totally redundant and the only way for W3C to keep up was to lamely try to copy from WHATWG into a "spec" at random intervals and claim it was something people could work towards, when it reality it offers no real advantages over working to the living standard, because no browser offers better coverage of that spec than any other random point of the living spec.

People want features. We saw what happens with a very slow moving, rigid standard: plugins. Flash was popular because at the time you simply couldn't do good video, animation, games on the web platform. Likewise, mobile phones shifted to apps because websites couldn't do notifications or use location information. You can bemoan a living spec, but you get one anyway, because people will work around the web if they can't do what they want. If you want to use a subset of that living spec, use it, but at least keeping it together and agreeing on roughly how to do these things is better than plugins or abandoning the web entirely.

Re: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

#14

Post by cwmma »

kuschku wrote: post #10
chrisseaton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an article with the background on this? Why do we have both the W3C and the WHATWG, and why do the W3C just copy and paste work from WHATWG, if that is indeed what happens?

The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…

I think you're downplaying the shit show that was XHTML.

It was the epitome of standards people chasing the ideal of a perfect platonic ideal of a standard at the cost of actual usability. E.G. a single parse error in an XHTML document and it doesn't render at all. That all by itself was a deal breaker for many people.

Re: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

#15

Post by chrisseaton »

kuschku wrote: post #10
chrisseaton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an article with the background on this? Why do we have both the W3C and the WHATWG, and why do the W3C just copy and paste work from WHATWG, if that is indeed what happens?

The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…

> the W3C, still being relied on by the other actors on the web that aren’t the 4 largest browsers

Why do other actors need to rely on the W3C? Why can't they use the WHATWG specs as well? You say they're more complicated, but if that's what the browsers do then that's what they do.

Re: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

#16

Post by chrisseaton »

Latty wrote: post #13
kuschku wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…

To offer another perspective. I'd say the W3C wasted a huge amount of time pursuing quests of purity (XHTML) over actually making the web better for users. I see the value in what they were trying to do, but it wasn't letting people do the things they wanted to do on the web. As browsers started just implementing features outside of standards in completely disparate ways because everyone was desperate for them (leadi…

> This lead to the W3C specs becoming totally redundant and the only way for W3C to keep up was to lamely try to copy from WHATWG into a "spec" at random intervals and claim it was something people could work towards

So why don't they just disband the W3C? It sounds like it's not needed any more if WHATWG are doing the work?

Re: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

#17

Post by ChrisSD »

chrisseaton wrote: post #7
ChrisSD wrote: post #6

It's sad to see the relationship between WHATWG and W3C has deteriorated to this point. Trying to wrangle a standard from a "living" (i.e. constantly changing) specification was always going to be tough but I'd have hoped both WHATWG and W3C would be able to maintain a working relationship.

Is there an article with the background on this? Why do we have both the W3C and the WHATWG, and why do the W3C just copy and paste work from WHATWG, if that is indeed what happens?

I don't know of an article, sorry. A brief history from memory would be that during XHTML days the W3C essentially let the HTML spec languish and people weren't moving to XHTML (at best they were moving to XHTML-like HTML).

So the WHATWG came along (mainly organised by the major browser vendors) and started the HTML spec moving again. This became part of what's known as HTML5.

However WHATWG doesn't exactly make a "standard" it makes a "living standard", which is a constantly shifting document which aims to describe where browsers currently are and what they hope to implement. The W3C decided to keep publishing its own HTML specifications and, as the WHATWG does describe what browsers are trying to do, the W3C's spec has to build at least partly on that work. There are differences though. For example, the W3C requires at least two implementations of a feature for it to be included in their spec.

The WHATWG has always opposed the W3C's spec. They see it as confusing to have two "official" specifications.

Re: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

#18

Post by kuschku »

chrisseaton wrote: post #15
kuschku wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…

> the W3C, still being relied on by the other actors on the web that aren’t the 4 largest browsers Why do other actors need to rely on the W3C? Why can't they use the WHATWG specs as well? You say they're more complicated, but if that's what the browsers do then that's what they do.

Because the XHTML spec would have made a lot of things easier.

I can write an XHTML1.1 parser and renderer in about one month.

Writing an HTML5 parser takes thousands of developers 5 years.

Re: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

#19

Post by andybak »

kuschku wrote: post #10
chrisseaton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an article with the background on this? Why do we have both the W3C and the WHATWG, and why do the W3C just copy and paste work from WHATWG, if that is indeed what happens?

The W3C was the original standardization organization for the web. They wanted to create standards that allow easy implementation by others, and were willing to make some tradeoffs with backwards compatibility for that (see XHTML). The browser vendors obviously oppose this, and want standards that just formalize what they already implement. As result, the browser vendors created their own standards committee, which s…

This summary glosses over several events that alienated browser vendors and web developers from the W3C and makes the W3C sound like the good guys.

One that springs to mind is the complete debacle around XHTML 2. The link above ( http://diveinto.html5doctor.com/past.html ) is worth reading to understand things from the WHATWG's perspective.

Re: Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Apple Object to W3C Fork of DOM Spec

#20

Post by Latty »

chrisseaton wrote: post #16
Latty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To offer another perspective. I'd say the W3C wasted a huge amount of time pursuing quests of purity (XHTML) over actually making the web better for users. I see the value in what they were trying to do, but it wasn't letting people do the things they wanted to do on the web. As browsers started just implementing features outside of standards in completely disparate ways because everyone was desperate for them (leadi…

> This lead to the W3C specs becoming totally redundant and the only way for W3C to keep up was to lamely try to copy from WHATWG into a "spec" at random intervals and claim it was something people could work towards So why don't they just disband the W3C? It sounds like it's not needed any more if WHATWG are doing the work?

I mean, reading that GitHub thread, it seems to me that everyone involved is saying that's exactly what should happen, and the people invested in the W3C are trying to force through new work just to justify the organisation's continued existence (and presumably, if I were being cynical, their paycheck).

The bone of "you could set specs based on snapshots of the living standard" was thrown to them, but the reality is no one cares enough about it to actually do that well, so it's just being done in a bad way that will hurt everyone.

That thread reads, to me, as "we tried being nice, but now you are causing problems, just stop please".

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