I really don't understand the hubbub at all. MathML is really verbose to write. For example, the quadratic formula: <math display='block'><mrow><mi>x</mi>

I really don't understand the hubbub at all. MathML is really verbose to write. For example, the quadratic formula: <math display='block'><mrow><mi>x</mi><mo>=</mo><mfrac><mrow><mo>&#x2212;</mo><mi>b</mi><mo>&#x00B1;</mo><msqrt><mrow><msup><mi>b</mi><mn>2</mn></msup><mo>&#x2212;</mo><mn>4</mn><mi>a</mi><mi>c</mi></mrow></msqrt></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn><mi>a</mi></mrow></mfrac></mrow></math> If I write the same equation using TeX-style math (which much of academia already uses when writing equations to be typeset in LaTeX): x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a} I don't think the average user runs into MathML enough to justify a fully-native implementation. If you do insist on writing MathML, MathJax supports rendering equations written in both formats, and you can always bundle a copy of it with your page if you're worried about it working offline.