Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
Proposal for the W3C to adopt HTML 5
Mozilla, Opera, and Apple have all come together to propose that the new HTML Working Group at the W3C adopt the HTML 5 work from WHATWG.
And before anyone shouts about patents, “Apple, Mozilla and Opera will agree to arrange a non-exclusive copyright assignment to the W3 Consortium”.
Considering the work that has been put into HTML 5, I think this proposal should be taken very seriously.
Here is the letter in full:
Dear HTML Working Group,
HTML5, comprising the Web Apps 1.0 and Web Forms 2.0 specifications,
is the product of many years of collaborative effort. It specifies
existing HTML4 markup and APIs with much clearer conformance criteria
for both implementations and documents. It specifies many useful
additions, in many cases drawing on features that have existed in
browser-based implementations for a long time. And it actively draws
on feedback from implementors and content authors. Therefore, we the
undersigned propose the following:- that the W3C HTML Working Group adops the WHAT Working Group’s
HTML5 as the starting point for further HTML development
- that the W3C’s next-generation HTML specification is officially
named “HTML 5″
- that Ian Hickson is named as editor for the W3C’s HTML 5
specification, to preserve continuity with the existing WHATWG effortIf HTML5 is adopted as a starting point, the contents of the document
would still be up for review and revision, but we would start with
the existing text. A suitable next step might be a high-level review
of functionality added and removed relative to HTML4.01, followed by
focused discussion and review of individual topic areas, including
both content already in the spec and proposed new features.
Discussions should be guided by common principles along the lines of
<http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ProposedDesignPrinciples>If the group is agreeable to these proposals, Apple, Mozilla and
Opera will agree to arrange a non-exclusive copyright assignment to
the W3 Consortium for HTML5 specifications.L. David Baron, Mozilla Foundation
Lars Erik Bolstad, Opera Software ASA
Brendan Eich, Mozilla Foundation
Dave Hyatt, Apple Inc.
Håkon Wium Lie, Opera Software ASA
Maciej Stachowiak, Apple Inc.
While this is an exciting news, as always, where the hell is Microsoft ?
Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, WA, USA.
Oh, wait, that’s probably not what you meant… ;-)
I know, microsoft controls about 80% of the browser market share. If anyone should have a say, It should be microsoft and mozilla.
How do you think MS gained 80% market share? By not following standards! We need for MS to follow standards and they need some mentors now.
This is great! Whenever I take a look at the spec progress I get the sense we will be writing HTML5 for a long long time to come. Wonderful, and incrimental changes. I think the following two comparisons sum up my feelings on HTML5 versus XHTML2:
<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
versus
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 2.0//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/DTD/xhtml2.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2002/06/xhtml2/" xml:lang="en"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.w3.org/2002/06/xhtml2/
http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/SCHEMA/xhtml2.xsd"
>
God bless the WHATWG and let’s hope the W3C listens.
Guys, wake up…Don’t be fooled by WHATAG’s stuff…This entire HTML5 crap is a shame.
1. The so called “HTML 5″ is a rip off from all the community work on HTML 4.x. Who gives WHATWG the right to name their spec as “HTML 5″? How about I create an XML spec and call it “SOAP 2″?
2. Webforms 2.0 is a desaster. There is XForms already as an official W3C standard for new generation of forms…Apparently someone at Opera didn’t like xForms spec, and decided to create another form spec. So they went ahead and formed WHATWG, and now they are trying to ask W3C to adopt it because Opera has built support for Web forms 2.0?
3. People who are familar with W3C know the bad reputation associated with WHATWG and Opera folks. If you don’t believe me, ask your organization’s W3C rep.
I would be much more excited about this if I thought there would be something useful to come of it within the next 5 years. It would be great to have a higher bar of guaranteed functionality, so I hope it does produce something…I’m just not very hopeful.
Mitch Niel is right, it’s for sure.
Strange, that apple guys sign this too. What about being ok with 4. for begining.
I can’t comment on the appropriateness of this initiative.
I am baffled, however, about the mention of patents in the second paragraph. Making a non-exclusive assignment of copyright has nothing to do with patents? What’s the deal?
I’m afraid that all this HTML5 press still makes no sense to me. I, like the rest of the webdev world, deal with invalid (X)HTML as we need too and have learned the limits of the different browsers. It sucks, but another 100 pages of specs won’t help microsoft.
Mitch Niel, I think that your post basically is a perfect example of the expression FUD.
the developers at apple/safari, opera, and mozilla will pretty much do what they want anyways. besides this HTML thing, has there been any signs that WhatWG is going to not continue reinventing things slightly differently (SVG vs Canvas, WebForms vs XForms, etc) .
i have a feeling this is going to be like sony/minidisc/memorysticks/bluray (w3c) and everyone else..
DO NOT WANT!
I seriously doubt that most people commenting on this topic have actually read through the HTML 5 spec. I have, and am in total agreeance with what they are saying. Obviously some other, more important people are too (Mozilla, Opera, Apple).
The people who want HTML5 have an agenda. Duh!!!
They are chairing the HTML working group. They’re right there; the reason they didn’t sign this letter is that they weren’t part of the WHATWG. This is intended to be the way to bring them in to the work.
Actually the WHATWG spec is called “Web Applications 1.0″, not “HTML5″. And it *is* the community work — the WHATWG is a mailing list of over 700 people all contributing to the spec, and, as for example with this blog post, we’re taking input from even people who aren’t on the list.
Web Forms 2.0 isn’t intended to replace XForms. It’s merely intended to address the needs that XForms didn’t address, namely, working with HTML (XForms requires XML).
You’ll be glad to hear then that Safari, Firefox, and Opera are *already* shipping some of the HTML5 features like canvas, data storage, Web Forms 2, online/offline, etc.
The work occuring in the HTML working group is covered by the W3C patent policy.
The WHATWG agenda is pretty public — we want to improve HTML for Web authors, make the spec tighter for implementors, and so forth, as described in various papers that have been published over the years. See the WHATWG FAQ for more details.
Hope this helps.
At current stage, i think without endorse or supported from Microsoft, the standard should not be called “standard”.
Ian Hickson, known as hixie, is one of the worst person to work with at W3C - his track record at SVG working group and some other working groups was fairly bad.
What is WHATWG? It is an organization initiated by Opera (Ian Hickson was an employee) trying to push their agenda in the standards world. As a small browser company, Opera has been trying to leverage organizations like W3C - understandable. However, developing their own spec disguised under their own organization called “WHATWG”, then trying to push the spec back to W3C, coupled with asshole personalities with big ego like Ian Hickson (there are quite a few similar folks from there), and sabotaging other activities at W3C, make it fairly distastful.
“The people who want HTML5 have an agenda. Duh!!!”.
Ian Hickson says ”
The WHATWG agenda is pretty public — we want to improve HTML for Web authors, make the spec tighter for implementors, and so forth, as described in various papers that have been published over the years. “. The truth is that WHATWG developed some spec according to Opera’s implementation, and now trying to push the spec back to W3C to be adopted. And WHATWG calls it as “HTML5″ (Ian Hickson referred it as HTML5 many times in meetings/talks) as if it is the officially blessed next generation of HTML.
Ian Hickson says “Web Forms 2.0 isn’t intended to replace XForms. It’s merely intended to address the needs that XForms didn’t address, namely, working with HTML”. Just to point out that web forms 2.0 has been reviewed by some W3C working goups already and rejected.
lastly, congrats on W3C forming the HTML Working Group and Chris Wilson from MSFT is chairing it. Just hope that people recognize the truth behind WHATWG and the so called “HTML5″.
Heh, did anyone sit in on the CSS standard-based design session at TAE Boston?
I found it funny that Chris Wilson was the only person in the room with headphones on. Not a great show of dedication from the person chairing the HTML WG.
Hello commentors, WHATWG is not an Opera conspiracy. It is a collaboration of Apple, Opera, Mozilla and many people in the web standards community to evolve HTML in a compatible way, as opposed to the W3C’s past approach of completely breaking compatibility with things like XHTML2 and XForms.
Fortunately, the W3C and Microsoft have decided to join forces with this host of volunteers, and we hope the working group will result in some great work that will incrementally evolve HTML and make the web suck less.
Finally, disparaging Ian Hickson for his excellent standards work (which, by the way, he has continued unchanged while affiliated with Mozilla, then Opera, and now Google) and praising Chris Wilson, who is architect of the least standards-compliant of the major browsers, seems like a strange set of priorities for someone in favor of web standards.
And for the record, while Ian is very much a no-nonsense individual when it comes to web standards, I have always found him a pleasure to work with.
Nick Shea wrote:
“Ian Hickson, known as hixie, is one of the worst person to work with at W3C - his track record at SVG working group and some other working groups was fairly bad.”
Actually, it’s the SVG working group is the problem, who constantly ignored Hixie’s, and others’, feedback and one of the reasons why the SVG spec is the mess that it is today.
Mark Arrington wrote:
“The truth is that WHATWG developed some spec according to Opera’s implementation, and now trying to push the spec back to W3C to be adopted.”
Actually, Opera wrote their WF2 implementation based on the spec and their implementation experience was used to improve the spec.
“Just to point out that web forms 2.0 has been reviewed by some W3C working goups already and rejected.”
What? Who rejected it? It was picked up by WAF, but it will most likely be moving to the HTMLWG.
I don’t think anyone is calling it a standard… if you see anywhere where we’re calling it that, please let me know. (ian@hixie.ch)
It is true that certain groups and I have not had the most constructive of relationships. It’s a matter of perspective who has the bad track record in these cases.
The WHATWG was set up equally by Apple, Mozilla, and Opera. The agenda has been public for some time — we want to improve HTML for Web authors, make the spec tighter for implementors, and so forth. The group now has over 700 members, including a number of people from big companies like Google. The specs we have written are based on feedback from hundreds if not thousands of people, based on detailed research, based on blog comments, forums, etc. The work has been open for years; your input has been welcome this whole time, as it continues to be both in the WHATWG and in the new HTML WG at the W3C.
Actually Opera’s implementation had very little effect on the spec; we mostly cared more about IE and to some extent Mozilla than other browsers. We aren’t trying to push the spec to be adopted in the W3C; the specification was offered by Apple, Mozilla and Opera, but nothing is being pushed.
Actually the Web Forms 2 spec was adopted by the W3C some months ago now and is currently at W3C Working Draft stage:
http://www.w3.org/TR/web-forms-2/
This spec might transition to the new HTML working group (right now it’s being published by the Web Application Formats working group). Note that the WHATWG did not even suggest the Web Forms 2 spec be used by the W3C, the Web Applications Formats working group approached the WHATWG themselves to ask if they could publish it at the W3C.
If you have any technical feedback on the WHATWG specs, by the way, either now or if they ever become W3C specs, please feel free to contact me or tell the working group(s) directly, as all feedback is welcome.
i admit to not having read the complete specs of that html5 stuff, but only some (detailed) articles what it is about and how it differs from xhtml, among them X/HTML 5 Versus XHTML 2. judging by that i see no reason to adopt html5 into my set of tools.
sectioning can easily be achieved with microformats and they are much more versatile. m tag. font tag? pre-defined class names? what for?
to me this looks like it offers much more opportunity on keeping bad coding habits.
Mozilla, Opera, and Apple should decrease the tolerance for invalid markup in their browsers instead of advocating for another option to fill the web with crap code - there is already enough sites out there not adhering to any standards whatsoever.
i can already see self-proclaimed developers use “the best of both” in their markup. say hello to x/html 52.
@Gordon : because there are billions of pages in HTML*5* ? Nobody said you shouldn’t retain backward-compatibility.
If there is going to be HTML 5, Why not include “Internet Explorer”. Designers and programmers do not have a problem with “opera, mozilla or safari”, they handle the html ok but IE making a mess .. so why not including IE so we designers/programmers don’t get pissed off at IE.
I think its great that the browser developers finaly try to work something out and find some real standards. But we cant ignore the fact that IE is still the most used browser and ofcourse they have something to say when making the standards. And i think its important that the HTML police have that in mind before they starts to make the standards. We seen it before, and how often did we hear that IE sux becourse it dosnt live up to the standards. If there is a browser out there ignorning alot of the basic standards its Safari!!!
The real motive behind HTML5 is corporate greed. Ian Hickson who wrote the HTML5 spec works for Google. Google Adsence (and many of their apps) do not work in XML environments. Firefox, Safari and Opera are distributed free of charge but they make millions of dollars from partnership with Google. What a coincidence that these are the 4 companies that are behind HTML5.
I think it’s obvious from reading these comments that Ian Hickson isn’t the blowhard haters make him out to be, and that those representing the HTML5 advocacy are far more level-headed and reasonable people to deal with than those opposed to it.
There is much to say against the WHATWG, Mozilla, Opera and Apple (as well as the W3C and Microsoft… basically no one who controls what the web looks like is exempt), but it needs to be better phrased and researched. It seems Ian Hickson is taking a lot of time to patiently address concerns, perhaps those opposed to WHATWG efforts could take that into account and address him in a similar way?
First, this is a proposal for the W3C HTML Working Group to adopt the WHAT WG work as a starting point to work from. Whether or not this is approved (and it looks likely that it will), the HTML WG will still have the authority to change or reject parts of it as necessary.
Second, Microsoft is involved in the process. Chris Wilson is co-chairing the HTML WG while simultaneously acting as a representative of Microsoft.
Reading the comments on this is absolutely astonishing. Ian Hixon a corporate pawn? Mozilla, Opera, Google, Apple, and Microsoft all teaming up in a conspiracy to mess up the internet? What kind of bizarre parallel universe are you people living in?
properly coded sites dont break. if your site breaks, learn how to code properly. if you cant, dont do websites. simple as that. i find it annoying how people dont care about the very little rules xhtml has and still expect their sites to work. by (gradually) decreasing fault tolerance in browsers, this nuisance could disappear once and for all.
I would like to take the time to respond to this in detail, but my Evil Underling beeper has just gone off. My overlord and master Ian Hickson has summoned me to his underground lair beneath Google to discuss further our plans for global domination.
lol @ dhyatt
I mean seriously, folks. If you want to talk about corporate greed in the tech industry and its horrible effects, there are much better targets than a proposed web standard. Try, for instance, environmental racism leading to the poisoning of hundreds of thousands of people around the world due to the waste created by computer equipment. Or try the slave labor conditions workers are subjected to in factories creating all our cool technogadgets.
This isn’t that hard. The world isn’t going to end because a bad web standard was proposed. But there are very real problems needing your attention. Choose your battles.
@dhyatt, if you don’t want us to question your motives, then let’s have some disclosure. By some estimates, in the last 12 months, Mozilla received $80-$100 million in Google partnerships. How much did Apple get in Google partnerships?
We would not care so much how much Apple is making from Google, if Apple was simply indifferent to XHTML 2 and let the Web community make the decision. But Apple is working actively to scuttle XHTML 2, which suggests its motive is money. What else could it be?
As I mentioned in a previous post, Google Adsense and many Google applications will not work in XML environment such as XHTML 2. If the Web was to go XML, Google would loose a lot of money or have to spend a lot of money re-writing their apps. Apple, Mozilla and Opera have hitched their wagon to Google. Google does well, they do well. Google looses money, they loose money too.
Trevor, just follow the money and you will find the truth.
Roman, you’re unfairly singling out Google AdSense in particular. The Web wouldn’t work in XHTML 2.
“dhyatt, if you don’t want us to question your motives, then let’s have some disclosure.”
I’m trying very hard to decide between a pony or my own personal jet pack. Or maybe some henchmen. Or a monocle. Or monocled henchmen… with jet packs!
So many options.
@Roman
Why wouldn’t AdSense work in XHTML2? All it needs is a tag and ability to modify the document. Do you have any idea what you are even talking about?
@Maciej, Adsense relies on document.write() which does not work in XML environments such as XHTML 2. I think Adsense also use IFRAME which is not part of XHTML 2.
@mpt, I am not unfairly singling out Google. Google is pushing HTML5 and employs the guy wrote is writing the HTML5 specification.
That’s a fascinating theory, Roman. You think that Google has decided, instead of paying an engineer for a couple of days to adapt AdSense to work in XHTML2, to pay Ian Hickson for years to write an entirely new HTML specification in the hope that the existence of the specification will prevent people from using XHTML2.
Fascinating, but also hilarious.
Because obviously document.write() is the wave of the future, and they could never, oh, I dunno, make AdSense work similarly to a million other web applications that don’t rely on document.write() or iframes.
I mean, honestly, Roman. I hate AdSense. If I thought supporting XHTML2 could destroy AdSense forever, I’d be on board. Too bad it’s just completely delusional.
Oh, and besides, XHTML2 won’t be treated as application/xml+xhtml until IE supports XML. So there’s no reason to believe iframes would be broken in XHTML2 anyway, for a long time coming. I dunno about document.write(), having no experience with it, but I suspect it’d work too with XHTML2 served as text/html.
And as far as I can tell there’s no good reason why document.write() shouldn’t work in an XML environment anyway. Browsers are great at parsing text into DOM nodes, and if the document.write would result in invalid XML, either attempt to clean it up or throw an error.
If we give up on the idea of XML being text, we might as well just define a binary DOM format to pass around and stop wasting bandwidth…
I could swear that about 5 yrs ago, the W3C stated that HTML 4.0 would be replaced by XHTML 1.0, and HTML would not be further developed. This is what I was worried: standards schism
If you can’t stop them…
Join them!
HTML 5.0 Will be a standards cocktail.
Lucky for us we have IE “The Super Blender”
What is the point?
standards are great - but the browsers have still not obeyed them after all this time. Standards do not work as intended, why not put more effort into educating browser authors into obeying rules before changing the rules? They cannot even hit a static target, so why keep it moving?
Once they browsers can all obey CSS, HTML and JavaScript(ECMA) as intended by standards, then think about enhancing them. They need to work together on this one.
Web developers have been going crazy for years and things are not improving. Man, it’s 2007 not 1994.
Most W3C standards are just guidelines. No smart company would play strictly by the rules, coz that only means they are falling behind. W3C is not supreme court. Orgs who get their docs in W3C are not judges either.
But I still curious what they are proposing in HTML 5 though.
I find the clean simplicity of HTML 5 much to my own liking. I write XHTML when I have to embed SVG and MathML, but otherwise I run with HTML 4.01 strict. I found I could get a validating HTML 5 page put together in under 30 seconds and without looking at reams of documentation. And the page displays in both IE7 and FireFox 2 - something the XHTML pages using an .xhtml extension and SVG fail to do (in IE7). HTML 5 simply works. Simple is better - may simpler carry the day.
All standards ultimately require you the designers, developers and programmers to support it. If you don’t want to support the proposed HTML5 spec, then don’t use it. Stick with XML-based specifications. Nobody is going to suddenly un-spec XHTML 1/2.
Frankly, it will be the browser developers that need to figure out how they are going to support all these different formats. Good luck and my sympathy to you folks (please make FF and IE work the same, without unexpected behaviours…).
All i ask is that the browser developers (all of them!) implement all these different specs to completion (dudes, I mean really finished, I can’t accept that, day jobs aside, some of the best developers in the world can only get 30-70% of the spec implemented).
Folks, I sincerely believe that if a developer is going to code bad, he/she is going to code bad whatever the language/spec (C, C++, C#, J#, Java, PHP, Perl, Python, HTML, XHTML, XML… there is bad code everywhere). And as long as we allow for margins of error (to err is human) somebody somewhere will exercise that margin (quirks mode anyone?).