Re: color: NCSA Mosaic, Netscape, and HTML3

>On Tue, 18 Jul 1995, Michael Johnson wrote:
>
>> >with a 60% market share. Most of the Web page designers that I work
>>with, and I
>> >work with many, include Netscape extensions without thinking twice about it.
>>
>> Which just goes to show that there are a lot of damned idiots out there
>> designing web pages, but we knew that already.
>[...]
>
>> Yes, I'm being an idealist here. Right now, the web needs idealists, and it
>> needs them in large, highly vocal, numbers if we're to get the web back on
>> the track that it ought to be on.
>
>Let me cut to the chase:
>
><rant>
>Write and release a full featured production HTML 3.0 browser for
>Windows, Macintosh and Unix (in order of market importance). Or quit
>whining that other people aren't spending their money they way you
>want them to.
>
>Is HTML 3.0 technically superior to N-HTML? Without a question.
>
>I am a great fan of standards. I also know when someone is playing King
>Canute.

Likewise...

>Netscapisms *WILL NOT* go away until equivalent functionality is
>in HTML 3.0 and in production browsers for Windows and Mac. All
>the debate about whether or not the extensions are good or bad is utterly
>moot. There are here. They are staying. That battle is already
>completely lost. New browsers are implementing Netscapisms. They are the
>*de facto* standard. The Microsoft color extensions to Netscape's <font >
>extensions are sure to catch on like wildfire as well.


So. What's your point in here... No need for *de facto* standard or ...

>How did this happen? Easy - they quit *talking* about standards to be
>implemented in some distant future and shipped product (no matter how
>badly thought out some the extension are). The HTML standards process risks
>becoming irrelevant. Not because the standards are bad - because the
>people developing them are too damn slow in closing and implementing
>them. It is 'committee-itis' at its worst. I have my doubts as to
>whether or not HTML 2.0 would be closed today (it *is* closed, right?
>Dan?) if Netscape hadn't kicked everyone in the shins.
>
>As for implementing HTML 3.0 - which version? The version that was talked
>about last week, or the version that will be talked about next week?
>Companies are not going to write browsers to support 3.0 features that
>are not STABLE. It cost real money to re-engineer. Especially after shipping.
>
>So close the damn thing. Write a killer HTML 3.0 browser. Kick Netscape and
>Microsoft's asses to hell and gone.
>

Right. Close HTML 3.0 and let's start talkin' next phase... what ever it's
# is!!!

>Idealism is no substitute for shipping product.

Nop. But it want pay either...



//  Jari Ollikainen                       jari.ollikainen@hut.fi
//  Helsinki University of Technology
//  Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli    Tel. +358   0 451 4065
//  TechNet Finland                       Fax: +358   0 451 4487
//  FI-02150 ESPOO, FINLAND

Received on Friday, 21 July 1995 04:20:28 UTC