2 ms·

>What is the relationship between W3C and WHATWG these days? IIRC a few years ago W3C essentially handed over web standards to WHATWG, with the thinking being

>What is the relationship between W3C and WHATWG these days? IIRC a few years ago W3C essentially handed over web standards to WHATWG, with the thinking being that it wasn't helpful to have 2 competing standards.

rpastuszak 5y ago
Since the web standards are owned by WHATWG, any idea what the purpose of W3C is nowadays?
- pdw 5y ago
  XML and everything that's build on it
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  I know they do standards work on top of web protocols these days. Those digital vaccination records were based on W3C’s Verifiable Credentials standard. (The US ones anyway; I’m not sure about those used elsewhere in the world.)
- Macha 5y ago
  CSS, XML, SVG are still W3C standards
- doublerabbit 5y ago
  Somehow I've not herd of WHATWG and according to the wiki article the active memberships are: Apple, Google, Microsoft and supposedly Mozilla? The three largest tech companies own the internet standards? That's quite unsettling.
  - mminer237 5y ago
    Regardless of who participates in drafting standards, those five control the de facto standards anyway as they make the five largest browsers.
  - JeremyBanks 5y ago
robin_reala 5y ago
Just HTML, not anything else.
- Macha 5y ago
  Note however that HTTP is a IETF standard, Javascript is an ECMA standard, so of the core web components, CSS is the last they control.
  - frivoal 5y ago
    Depending on what you consider core: also SVG, WebRTC, ServiceWorkers, Aria, Web Payments, WOFF, Web Audio…
  - robin_reala 5y ago
    Right, but that’s not the only thing they do that’s used on the web. They also own and run XML, security specs like CSP and SRI, the WCAG accessibility guidelines, Web Payments, WebAuth, WebRTC, etc etc. They also do non-web stuff that happens to use web standards, for example ePub3.
tannhaeuser 5y ago
W3C had released redacted snapshots (HTML 5, 5.1, and 5.2) of WHATWG's so-called "living standard", then published HTML 5.3 as a reference to a specific WHATWG commit and for a short time promised more supposedly at least qa'd snapshots, then last year finally gave up and just linked to WHATWG's head [1]. SVG2 didn't go anywhere either due to lack of interest of "browser vendors". MathML hasn't been updated in many years AFAIK. So that leaves ARIA and CSS. Whatever W3C does and with due respect to TBL, as a self-proclaimed standardization body they've failed spectacularly to keep "browsers vendors" at bay and the web from being monopolized, and I think they should disband, if only to demonstrate to the world that the web isn't "standardized" in any meaningful sense of that word. Even HNers frequently have illusions about "web standards". While on the way out, they might attempt to deliver CSS specs actually useful for developing browsers. Or maybe they want to venture into developing a browser themselves using their funds? [1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/NOTE-html53-20210128/ https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/NOTE-html53-20210128/

rpastuszak 5y ago

Since the web standards are owned by WHATWG, any idea what the purpose of W3C is nowadays?

pdw 5y ago
XML and everything that's build on it
ryukafalz 5y ago
I know they do standards work on top of web protocols these days. Those digital vaccination records were based on W3C’s Verifiable Credentials standard. (The US ones anyway; I’m not sure about those used elsewhere in the world.)
Macha 5y ago
CSS, XML, SVG are still W3C standards
doublerabbit 5y ago
Somehow I've not herd of WHATWG and according to the wiki article the active memberships are: Apple, Google, Microsoft and supposedly Mozilla? The three largest tech companies own the internet standards? That's quite unsettling.
- mminer237 5y ago
  Regardless of who participates in drafting standards, those five control the de facto standards anyway as they make the five largest browsers.
- JeremyBanks 5y ago

robin_reala 5y ago

Just HTML, not anything else.

Macha 5y ago
Note however that HTTP is a IETF standard, Javascript is an ECMA standard, so of the core web components, CSS is the last they control.
- frivoal 5y ago
  Depending on what you consider core: also SVG, WebRTC, ServiceWorkers, Aria, Web Payments, WOFF, Web Audio…
- robin_reala 5y ago
  Right, but that’s not the only thing they do that’s used on the web. They also own and run XML, security specs like CSP and SRI, the WCAG accessibility guidelines, Web Payments, WebAuth, WebRTC, etc etc. They also do non-web stuff that happens to use web standards, for example ePub3.

tannhaeuser 5y ago

W3C had released redacted snapshots (HTML 5, 5.1, and 5.2) of WHATWG's so-called "living standard", then published HTML 5.3 as a reference to a specific WHATWG commit and for a short time promised more supposedly at least qa'd snapshots, then last year finally gave up and just linked to WHATWG's head [1]. SVG2 didn't go anywhere either due to lack of interest of "browser vendors". MathML hasn't been updated in many years AFAIK. So that leaves ARIA and CSS. Whatever W3C does and with due respect to TBL, as a self-proclaimed standardization body they've failed spectacularly to keep "browsers vendors" at bay and the web from being monopolized, and I think they should disband, if only to demonstrate to the world that the web isn't "standardized" in any meaningful sense of that word. Even HNers frequently have illusions about "web standards". While on the way out, they might attempt to deliver CSS specs actually useful for developing browsers. Or maybe they want to venture into developing a browser themselves using their funds? [1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/NOTE-html53-20210128/ https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/NOTE-html53-20210128/