

Microsoft joins HTML 5 standard fray in earnest - suprgeek
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10305822-92.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

======
suprgeek
Microsoft has a well-known strategy.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish> Embrace, Extend
and Extinguish. As one of the other commentators pointed out, they followed a
similar model in the ODF Vs OOXML fiasco. First: do not join until late in the
game. Next: complain loudly about features and options even though they were
fully aware of their existence and had many chances to get in the game to
influence them. When told that it is too late or that their comments do not
make sense, react by introducing incompatible or proprietary stuff that no
other vendor could possibly adopt due to its closed source nature. - Result,
the so called standard is rendered a little less "standard" because of
Microsoft's refusal to play nice. The software development community loses out
and Microsoft goes back to its "business as usual". The nature of Microsoft's
comments here makes it clear that this is the second step, namely "complain
loudly" that they are unhappy about some of the tags. This will go on for a
while, until they will just start bundling proprietary stuff with IE 9.0.

~~~
thwarted
I saw _Embrace, Extend, Extinguish_ play out first hand with the
standardization of SPF. Things seem to be going well and seemingly right
before consensus, Microsoft shows up and says it won't work because clients,
namely Outlook, don't support it, despite that it has nothing to do with MUAs.
This distracts people enough so that Microsoft has enough time to come up with
SenderID, which co-opts the data format of SPF allowing MS to say they are
trying to be compatible when it really subverts the intent of the standard.
They also claimed they may or may not have patent interests but won't say
exactly what they are, that will have to wait until after everything is
standardized and the patents are filed--because since this is such an
innovative idea Microsoft is being kind enough to file patents so that the
community and standard is protected in the event someone else is waiting with
a submarine patent, even though the IETF discourages standards that are patent
encumbered. Microsoft gets to say it is trying to work with the community, and
through press releases and public policy statements confuses the goals and
intent of SPF and SenderID. IETF decides to create two RFCs and gives them
Experimental status, thereby almost ensuring that no one will adopt either
fully, but to this day we still need to create multiple DNS records and are
never sure exactly how email receiving systems will interpret them.

(working from years-old memory, I don't mean to present the above as
representative of the exact order of events, but I'm sure someone else could
be found who could reasonably corroborate it)

------
Elepsis
Actual headline: "Microsoft joins HTML 5 standard fray in earnest"

From the guidelines: "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put
gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it."

What part of the article said _anything_ about derailing? Sigh.

~~~
pohl
Must a posting preserve the editorial spin in the original headline? "In
Earnest" indicates sincere and intense conviction. This value judgement is at
odds with journalistic neutrality, isn't it? I took the HN headline to be a
removal of editorial spin, not an addition of gratuitous spin. (Edit: Ok, I
missed the word 'derailing'. Both headlines are spintastic.)

~~~
Elepsis
I would rather trust the journalist (or editor or author) of the piece to come
up with his or her own headlines. Even if the headline is "spintastic" --
which I don't see in this case -- presumably it accurately reflects the
article. That's kind of the point of headlines.

~~~
pohl
Checking to see if a headline accurately reflects the article is a poor
decision procedure for detecting the presence or absence of spin. The most you
can say, when they match, is that the headline and the article might have
similar spin.

But no need to presume, the article is right there. It makes no statement at
all about the Microsoft's motivations, let alone the sincerity of them.

The phrase "in earnest", on the other hand, asserts a frame for interpreting
the event - the same function served by the word "derailing" in the HN
headline. Interpretive frames are the very essence of spin.

------
jamesbritt
FTFA: "The support of ratified standards (that Web developers) can use is
something that we are extremely supportive of," said Amy Barzdukas, general
manager for IE, in a July interview. "In some cases, it can be premature to
start claiming support for standards that are not yet in fact standards."

This is important. For years noted Web designers have been touting "designing
with Web standards", and for good reason. While there are many sweet things in
HTML5, treating what's defined today as if it were some final spec risks
creating, over time, a hodgepodge of not-quite HTML5 documents.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
This is important, but not for the reasons you think.

Refusing to support (or implement or discuss or contribute to) a standard up
until after it has been ratified as a full standard is Microsoft's favourite
new technique for derailing standards.

On first glance it seems reasonable but imagine if everyone followed the same
rule. There would be no standard for anyone to follow, or if people forged
ahead and wrote the standard anyway it would have no real world implementation
and as a result be entirely useless.

If you think they do support web standards then note they use the exact same
tactic with ODF. I trust no-one is stupid enough to think that Microsoft is in
any way enthusiastic for that standard to get traction.

~~~
jamesbritt
"This is important, but not for the reasons you think."

I was speaking to developers who want to treat HTML5 today as a proper
standard, and push out Web sites with HTML5 features, while the spec is still
under development.

But I think the tactic there is that if enough sites are using a common set of
non-standard features supported by FF, Opera, etc, but not IE.whatver, then
users of IE.whatever will eventually push Microsoft to implement these
features.

I realize that part of getting a usable standard in place is to first put
possible usable standards into action, but it's reasonable to wonder if every
feature people decide to push for or to act on should or will make the final
cut.

I hardly expect Microsoft to act out of altruism, (nor do I expect that of
Google), but I also don't assume every question raised by Microsoft is done
for malicious reasons.

------
chaosmachine
Source: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=749299>

------
TweedHeads
Wake me up when they implement SVG and canvas.

No, they don't care about HTML5 no matter how they spin it.

