One problem was the standard was bug-for-bug replication of a particular version of SQLite.
There’s very good reason for that not to be a standard. (Now, assuming the SQLite documentation is licensed in a way which supports this, copying the documentation of SQLite’s supported SQL as of that version into the standard might have been viable, but no one interested in having WebSQL proposed that or any other resolution.
That relates to the cited issue of absence of independent implementations, which would have been a problem even with a spec that supported independent implementations and verification of their compliance independent of a particular reference implementation. though I personally think the spec problem is a bigger real problem (even if not the decisive policy problem) than the “everyone is using the same underlying software to implement the spec” problem is in this case, where the shared implementation is a permissively licensed open source implementation sponsored by several of the browser vendors, among others.
hmmm...I appreciate the thoughtful reply. You bring up an interesting point. What is the SQLite documentation licensed as? I would assume PD like the rest of it, but I don't know that for sure.
There’s very good reason for that not to be a standard. (Now, assuming the SQLite documentation is licensed in a way which supports this, copying the documentation of SQLite’s supported SQL as of that version into the standard might have been viable, but no one interested in having WebSQL proposed that or any other resolution.
That relates to the cited issue of absence of independent implementations, which would have been a problem even with a spec that supported independent implementations and verification of their compliance independent of a particular reference implementation. though I personally think the spec problem is a bigger real problem (even if not the decisive policy problem) than the “everyone is using the same underlying software to implement the spec” problem is in this case, where the shared implementation is a permissively licensed open source implementation sponsored by several of the browser vendors, among others.