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WHATWG formed as an initiative of browser vendors to collaborate on new browser functionality and other stuff that needed coordination, and there's nothing wron

WHATWG formed as an initiative of browser vendors to collaborate on new browser functionality and other stuff that needed coordination, and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem now is this has led the web stack to be defined by a closed club with fewer and fewer members, with incentives not necessarily aligned with users. But the web isn't just a browser vendor's gamble; it's used for vital communication and documentation in business, education, administration, media, science, law, medicine, etc. If we want to depend on the web (and spend billions on it), then there ought to be some representation and participation, since there clearly is public interest, and possibly funding. Maybe people looked at W3C to organize these interests, but indeed W3C has failed this expectation by statue. What they're doing instead is publishing redacted WHATWG snapshots (and have announced to not even do any redaction in the future). In other words, they're publishing work-in-progress collaborative documents without significant contributions and editorial. Having a point of reference is still something I guess (I'm even basing my HTML 5.x SGML DTDs on W3C's snapshots [1]) but not advancing the interest of web users, which W3C should have made their goal. [1]: http://sgmljs.net/docs/html52.html http://sgmljs.net/docs/html52.html

TheRealPomax 7y ago
This seems a false, or at least uninformed, statement. WhatWG is just as closed as W3C was: the discussions are public, and anyone can contribute to them. Is there a hurdle that you need to overcome to show you actually care enough before you're allowed to participate? Sure. But it's the kind of hurdle that anyone with an email address can overcome. You're not excluded just because you don't work for "a browser vendor". Also, it feels like you're confusing the end user with the developers. Business, education, admininstration, media, science, law, medicine, etc. are all fields that rely on the web _through_ browsers and browser components, made by browser vendors. Whether that's IE6, or WebKit, or Electron, or Android Webview. So yes: the browser vendors are absolutely the people primarily pulling the strings, and pushing the envelope, which makes a whole lot of sense: it's their collective product they're curating.

TheRealPomax 7y ago

This seems a false, or at least uninformed, statement. WhatWG is just as closed as W3C was: the discussions are public, and anyone can contribute to them. Is there a hurdle that you need to overcome to show you actually care enough before you're allowed to participate? Sure. But it's the kind of hurdle that anyone with an email address can overcome. You're not excluded just because you don't work for "a browser vendor". Also, it feels like you're confusing the end user with the developers. Business, education, admininstration, media, science, law, medicine, etc. are all fields that rely on the web _through_ browsers and browser components, made by browser vendors. Whether that's IE6, or WebKit, or Electron, or Android Webview. So yes: the browser vendors are absolutely the people primarily pulling the strings, and pushing the envelope, which makes a whole lot of sense: it's their collective product they're curating.