
Everyone wants their thing to be HTML - toni
http://blog.mozilla.com/rob-sayre/2009/04/08/htmlwg/
======
halo
In the real world, most true progressions in web technology has been some
variation of the following:

* One browser vendor implements something

* Some other browser vendor realises its a good idea, copies it

* Every other vendor scrambles to implement some form of it

* Behaviour is formalised into a standard

* Browsers slowly but surely end up on the standardised version

This often tends to create saner and more useful 'standards' than the real
ones: InnerHTML, the Quirks Mode box model, Ajax, Canvas, font-face,
JavaScript. The downside is slow and 'incorrect' implementations can be slow
to fix bugs (although that happens with true standards too). Standards are
rarely truly "industry leading" and I'm truly not sure if the standards
leading is actually much better in the real world than the present ad hoc
development method.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
That's a standard free-market, laissez-faire take on things, but not entirely
accurate. The usual IT factors of lock-in, path dependency and network effects
have their place. As does the frequently underestimated, yet monumental task
of getting effective interoperation even when all parties are willing and able
to do so (neither of which is generally the case).

Minor browser engines such as Webkit, Gecko and Opera can't change the market
much on their own. They need to be interoperable to some degree for people to
start using their additions to the standards on the wider web. HTML5 (nee
WHAT-WG) was initially those browser vendors coming together to work on
exactly that.

You give Canvas as an implementation before standardization example, yet it
was far more iterative than that with Apple's original implementation (for use
in the walled garden of their widgets) being presented for standardization
with the explicit idea that it was good for Apple if there were interoperable
implementations out there.

It's a pretty good example of Co-opetition.
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coopetition>)

------
axod
"a video element that isn’t interoperable"

The img tag isn't hugely interoperable, but it'd be a sad web without images.
<audio> is a huge step up from the current madness of <object> <bgsound>
<embed> or <flash>.

Are people out there really using XHTML still? It'd be interesting to do a
poll to see how many are using XHTML vs HTML.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I think the issue here that he is referring to (obliquely) is the disagreement
on video codecs.

So to take your img example it would be analogous to a specification for img
where Firefox was supporting PNG (but not GIF) and Safari supporting GIF (but
not PNG) and IE supporting neither but Microsoft is at the same time pushing a
closed source browser plugin that can show images in a Microsoft proprietary
and patented format that sits outside of HTML. That would be a "sad web" too,
even if it technically had images.

He's not (imho) against the video tag in any way, just pointing it out as an
example of the (inherently) political squabbling and consequent craziness that
surround standardization in a multi-billion pound market.

~~~
axod
Sure, it's a pain, but I think it has to happen, and just like images, where
jpg/gif/png emerged victorious, some video formats will emerge that are
supported everywhere. Maybe just wishful thinking...

