Re: [whatwg/url] It's not immediately clear that "URL syntax" and "URL parser" conflict (#118)

> By focusing on the implementations that are the least likely to change, and making it easier for others to align with them.

@annevk this reads to me like the WHATWG rewards intransigence: that is, if the Chrome or Firefox team rocked up and said "no we will not change because we don't want to", the WHATWG will throw its hands up in the air and say "welp, guess that's spec-standard then". Is my understanding of that right?

> The specification is aimed at cURL & co and it's a shame they rather implement no standard at all, but that's up to them.

I'm here representing "& co", and while we're talking I should point out that in shazow/urllib3#859 I proposed moving our tooling to using the parsing algorithm provided here. So it's not like we're sitting here ignoring you.

But the attitude of WHATWG is rubbing me the wrong way. We have had a specification plopped down in front of us that we were not consulted in, that we have not helped to develop, and which gives the impression of not really considering us first-class citizens. This thread repeatedly talks about "major implementations" and about "the implementations that are least likely to change". The *overwhelming* sentiment I read from those messages is that this specification is about *doing what big browsers do*, rather than considering what the wider ecosystem does. I get the strong impression that the implementations that are *more* likely to change boils down to "anyone who isn't a browser", and that's a pretty insulting way to talk about our work.

You cannot be surprised, then, that we don't feel particularly warm and fuzzy about a specification that doesn't consider us or our use cases to be important enough to be part of the story. This specification feels to me like it exists to beat us into line, as the product of an organisation that, unlike the IETF, doesn't think our implementations matter very much.

And, yeah, that's fine, I'll try to do it anyway because I care enough about my users that I'm prepared to work in the broken world that the WHATWG is happy to spec on rather than press for people to fix their broken implementations. But the high-and-mighty benevolent and somewhat patronising tone taken in this thread is really quite insulting.

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