3 ms·

> I found it quite frustrating how teams would be legitimately actively pursuing ideas that would be good for the world, without prioritising short-term Google

by lapcat 3y ago

> I found it quite frustrating how teams would be legitimately actively pursuing ideas that would be good for the world, without prioritising short-term Google interests, only to be met with cynicism in the court of public opinion. > For my first nine years at Google I worked on HTML and related standards (https://whatwg.org/ https://whatwg.org/). My mandate was to do the best thing for the web, as whatever was good for the web would be good for Google (I was explicitly told to ignore Google's interests). I feel as though Hixie is lacking in self-awareness here. Googlers tend to be biased toward themselves and their own power. Have Googlers considered the possibility that the best thing for the web, and the world, is for Google to keep its grubby hands off the web? Is Google Search's dominant market share good for the web? And the market shares of Android, Chrome, and Gmail? I would answer no, no, no, no. It's funny that Hixie mentions WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) as a "good" example. What actually happened is that Hixie was a ringleader in a coup d'état by the browser vendors to overthrow the W3C and take over the HTML standards. Is that good for the web, and the world? Here I would also say no.

mkozlows 3y ago
I think this criticism of WHATWG forgets how moribund and ossified W3C was at the time, up its own ass with semantic web nonsense and an imaginary suite of XHTML 2.0 technologies that had no path to reality. Hixie's criticisms of it were correct, and WHATWG was the kick in the pants that the W3C needed to focus on relevant things again.
- lapcat 3y ago
  I think the fact that I'm bringing up the history shows that I haven't forgotten. There are legimate disagreements over whether switching to XML was a good idea. Nonetheless, these disagreements were not a good excuse to overthrow W3C entirely, merely a convenient excuse for the browser vendors. Moreover, I don't think the HTML standards need to move as fast as Google wants them to move. HTML is now a "living standard", in other words, constantly changing, and I don't think that's good for the web. These things should move slowly. The giant browser vendors themselves are selfishly the main beneficiaries of forcing everyone else on the web to move at their pace. It consolidates their monopolization of the web. > WHATWG was the kick in the pants that the W3C needed to focus on relevant things again. Relevant things like... not controlling the HTML standard anymore? WHATWG has stolen a lot of the relevance of W3C.
  - Karrot_Kream 3y ago
    The WHATWG W3C kerfuffle perfectly illustrates that when an unaccountable body's decisions become unpopular, another body can meet popular demands and sidestep the body's work. W3C was not taking HTML, XML, and XHTML in the directions that most users of the Web wanted. The fact that semantic web fans and the web-should-be-for-documents crowd agreed with the W3C doesn't matter, they were outnumbered by the rest. WHATWG met the demands of other devs and pushed the W3C into irrelevance. Sometimes it takes more than feeling right to be right, you need to convince others also.
    - ttepasse 3y ago
      ... another _unaccountable_ body And of course WHATWG didn't out-convince devs on a marketplace of ideas; as an oligopoly of browser developers they just did.
- zellyn 3y ago
  There's definitely a period of history where noticing WHATWG on a URL made me breathe a sigh of relief that the content might actually be useful and understandable. These days, W3C stuff seems perfectly fine (except for their standard document template making it almost impossible to tell “what is this thing actually about?” at a glance! )
CrimsonRain 3y ago
W3C got what it deserved. > The WHATWG began because the W3C told you, “HTML was dead. If you want to do something like HTML5, you should go elsewhere.” Now that the W3C has come to its senses, is it time for the WHATWG to hang up its spurs and for its participants to work inside W3C to continue the development of the web platform? We tried (2007–2012). It didn’t work out. In fact, we ended up spinning more specs out of the W3C! The WHATWG has about 12 specs spread amongst eight or so editors now. > Bruce The spec now known as HTML 5 began with a "guerilla" group called WHATWG. How and why did the WHATWG begin? > Hixie The short answer is the W3C told us to. The long answer: Back in 2003, when XForms was going through its final stages (the "Proposed Recommendation" vote stage), the browser vendors were concerned that it wouldn’t take off on the Web without being made a part of HTML, and out of that big discussion (which unfortunately is mostly hidden behind the W3C‘s confidentiality walls) came a proof of concept showing that it was possible to take some of XForms’ ideas and put then into HTML 4. We originally called it "XForms Basic", and later renamed it "WebForms 2.0". This formed the basis of what is now HTML 5. In 2004, the W3C had a workshop, the "The W3C Workshop on Web Applications and Compound Documents", where we (the browser vendors) argued that it was imperative that HTML be extended in a backwards-compatible way. It was a turning point in the W3C‘s history—you could tell because at one point RedHat, Sun, and Microsoft, arch-rivals all, actually agreed on something, and that never happens. The outcome of that workshop was that the W3C concluded that HTML was still dead, as had been decided in a workshop in 1998, and that if we wanted to do something like HTML 5, we should go elsewhere. So we announced a mailing list, and did it there. At the time I was working for Opera Software, but "we" in this case was Opera and Mozilla acting together (with Apple cheering us from the sidelines). W3C declared html dead and now you are mad on whatwg for html5?
- lapcat 3y ago
  > W3C got what it deserved. This is an unnecessarily "team"-oriented spin. The question is what the web and the users of the web deserve, and I don't believe they deserve to be dominated by a few giant tech corporations who have a monopoly not only on web browsers but also on operating systems. > Now that the W3C has come to its senses, is it time for the WHATWG to hang up its spurs and for its participants to work inside W3C to continue the development of the web platform? Yes. Here's the major problem: the tech world of 2003 was a lot different than the tech world of 2023. Back then, iOS didn't exist, Android didn't exist, Google Chrome didn't exist, Safari barely existed. The WHATWG members are infinitely more dangerous and monopolistic now than they were back then. Maybe, arguably, HTML5 was the better outcome at the time of the dispute at that time, but the dominance of the major browser vendors now is not the better outcome. The irony is that Mozilla and Opera inadvertently handed over great power to the BigCos who would come to overshadow and virtually annihilate them. You won the battle but lost the war. Opera even had to switch to Chromium. > So we announced a mailing list, and did it there. It seems to me that more time could have been taken and more lobbying done. > W3C declared html dead and now you are mad on whatwg for html5? Well, I personally think HTML5 <video> was completely botched and became a nightmare, but that's a bit of a digression.
kccqzy 3y ago
I disagree. If Google were to keep its grubby hands off the web, another corporation would step in and lead that effort and maybe even sabotage it. At least at that time Google's "don't be evil" motto was still alive enough that it was genuinely a good outcome. Can you imagine if Google didn't and Apple did? Clearly the outcome would be that Apple would complicate everything and make the web die a death by a thousand cuts and everyone would have had to switch to apps that only Apple can approve.
- financltravsty 3y ago
  Slightly tangential, but I'd like to post a hyperbolic example against the "someone else would have done it anyway": Yes, a Googler could drown a box full of kittens; but if we stop him, then someone else will just drown the kittens in his place. I think you have to weigh the probability of it happening. It's unlikely someone else is going drown those kittens, as unlikely as it is someone else is going to stick their fingers into the web pot (considering, I can't think of any "FAAAAANGAMA" that has the same incentives).

by lapcat 3y ago

mkozlows 3y ago

I think this criticism of WHATWG forgets how moribund and ossified W3C was at the time, up its own ass with semantic web nonsense and an imaginary suite of XHTML 2.0 technologies that had no path to reality. Hixie's criticisms of it were correct, and WHATWG was the kick in the pants that the W3C needed to focus on relevant things again.

lapcat 3y ago
I think the fact that I'm bringing up the history shows that I haven't forgotten. There are legimate disagreements over whether switching to XML was a good idea. Nonetheless, these disagreements were not a good excuse to overthrow W3C entirely, merely a convenient excuse for the browser vendors. Moreover, I don't think the HTML standards need to move as fast as Google wants them to move. HTML is now a "living standard", in other words, constantly changing, and I don't think that's good for the web. These things should move slowly. The giant browser vendors themselves are selfishly the main beneficiaries of forcing everyone else on the web to move at their pace. It consolidates their monopolization of the web. > WHATWG was the kick in the pants that the W3C needed to focus on relevant things again. Relevant things like... not controlling the HTML standard anymore? WHATWG has stolen a lot of the relevance of W3C.
- Karrot_Kream 3y ago
  The WHATWG W3C kerfuffle perfectly illustrates that when an unaccountable body's decisions become unpopular, another body can meet popular demands and sidestep the body's work. W3C was not taking HTML, XML, and XHTML in the directions that most users of the Web wanted. The fact that semantic web fans and the web-should-be-for-documents crowd agreed with the W3C doesn't matter, they were outnumbered by the rest. WHATWG met the demands of other devs and pushed the W3C into irrelevance. Sometimes it takes more than feeling right to be right, you need to convince others also.
  - ttepasse 3y ago
    ... another _unaccountable_ body And of course WHATWG didn't out-convince devs on a marketplace of ideas; as an oligopoly of browser developers they just did.
zellyn 3y ago
There's definitely a period of history where noticing WHATWG on a URL made me breathe a sigh of relief that the content might actually be useful and understandable. These days, W3C stuff seems perfectly fine (except for their standard document template making it almost impossible to tell “what is this thing actually about?” at a glance! )

CrimsonRain 3y ago

W3C got what it deserved. > The WHATWG began because the W3C told you, “HTML was dead. If you want to do something like HTML5, you should go elsewhere.” Now that the W3C has come to its senses, is it time for the WHATWG to hang up its spurs and for its participants to work inside W3C to continue the development of the web platform? We tried (2007–2012). It didn’t work out. In fact, we ended up spinning more specs out of the W3C! The WHATWG has about 12 specs spread amongst eight or so editors now. > Bruce The spec now known as HTML 5 began with a "guerilla" group called WHATWG. How and why did the WHATWG begin? > Hixie The short answer is the W3C told us to. The long answer: Back in 2003, when XForms was going through its final stages (the "Proposed Recommendation" vote stage), the browser vendors were concerned that it wouldn’t take off on the Web without being made a part of HTML, and out of that big discussion (which unfortunately is mostly hidden behind the W3C‘s confidentiality walls) came a proof of concept showing that it was possible to take some of XForms’ ideas and put then into HTML 4. We originally called it "XForms Basic", and later renamed it "WebForms 2.0". This formed the basis of what is now HTML 5. In 2004, the W3C had a workshop, the "The W3C Workshop on Web Applications and Compound Documents", where we (the browser vendors) argued that it was imperative that HTML be extended in a backwards-compatible way. It was a turning point in the W3C‘s history—you could tell because at one point RedHat, Sun, and Microsoft, arch-rivals all, actually agreed on something, and that never happens. The outcome of that workshop was that the W3C concluded that HTML was still dead, as had been decided in a workshop in 1998, and that if we wanted to do something like HTML 5, we should go elsewhere. So we announced a mailing list, and did it there. At the time I was working for Opera Software, but "we" in this case was Opera and Mozilla acting together (with Apple cheering us from the sidelines). W3C declared html dead and now you are mad on whatwg for html5?

lapcat 3y ago
> W3C got what it deserved. This is an unnecessarily "team"-oriented spin. The question is what the web and the users of the web deserve, and I don't believe they deserve to be dominated by a few giant tech corporations who have a monopoly not only on web browsers but also on operating systems. > Now that the W3C has come to its senses, is it time for the WHATWG to hang up its spurs and for its participants to work inside W3C to continue the development of the web platform? Yes. Here's the major problem: the tech world of 2003 was a lot different than the tech world of 2023. Back then, iOS didn't exist, Android didn't exist, Google Chrome didn't exist, Safari barely existed. The WHATWG members are infinitely more dangerous and monopolistic now than they were back then. Maybe, arguably, HTML5 was the better outcome at the time of the dispute at that time, but the dominance of the major browser vendors now is not the better outcome. The irony is that Mozilla and Opera inadvertently handed over great power to the BigCos who would come to overshadow and virtually annihilate them. You won the battle but lost the war. Opera even had to switch to Chromium. > So we announced a mailing list, and did it there. It seems to me that more time could have been taken and more lobbying done. > W3C declared html dead and now you are mad on whatwg for html5? Well, I personally think HTML5 <video> was completely botched and became a nightmare, but that's a bit of a digression.

kccqzy 3y ago

I disagree. If Google were to keep its grubby hands off the web, another corporation would step in and lead that effort and maybe even sabotage it. At least at that time Google's "don't be evil" motto was still alive enough that it was genuinely a good outcome. Can you imagine if Google didn't and Apple did? Clearly the outcome would be that Apple would complicate everything and make the web die a death by a thousand cuts and everyone would have had to switch to apps that only Apple can approve.

financltravsty 3y ago
Slightly tangential, but I'd like to post a hyperbolic example against the "someone else would have done it anyway": Yes, a Googler could drown a box full of kittens; but if we stop him, then someone else will just drown the kittens in his place. I think you have to weigh the probability of it happening. It's unlikely someone else is going drown those kittens, as unlikely as it is someone else is going to stick their fingers into the web pot (considering, I can't think of any "FAAAAANGAMA" that has the same incentives).