Public Understanding of the Timeframe of HTMl 5 Development

In Lachlan's A List Apart article (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/previewofhtml5/), it said...
"Due to the requirement to produce test cases and achieve interoperable implementations, current estimates have work finishing in around ten to fifteen years."

Now while this may be technically accurate, the general web developer community doesn't understand the finer points of the W3C standards development process and how long it takes.  I fear that because the finish line seems so far off (10-15 years) they're going to disengage because they feel they'll never see the fruits of their contribution.

The web developer community are the folks we want to be engaged, active, and attentive to what's going on because that's the only way this effort will achieve critical mass of acceptance.

When my friend Justin Stockton read the article, this is what he Twittered.
"finds it interesting that NASA is currently planning a moon base that will be operational before HTML5 is completed. " http://twitter.com/poorgeek/statuses/472901382 

If you look at the comments on the ALA article and the blogosphere, you'll see a lot of similar sentiment.

I propose we start a doc that explains the process of developing HTML 5 a bit more in detail.  It'd help to let people know what to expect at the different parts of the process and where they can chip in or event start adapting their current sites.

I've started a shell doc based on the milestones listed on the HTML WG home page and would love any contributions from someone who wants to help, especially from folks who understand HTML 5 or the process more then I.
http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/Guide/HTML5Process 

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative has found great success with.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/w3c-process.php 

Cheers,
Justin Thorp
 

******************
Justin Thorp
US Library of Congress
Web Services - Office of Strategic Initiatives
e - juth@loc.gov
p - 202/707-9541

Received on Friday, 7 December 2007 21:27:08 UTC