Re[3]: rel="nofollow" attribute

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005, Alexander Savenkov wrote:
> > 
> > Just a quick note to clarify some misconceptions: the WHATWG is not 
> > proprietary.
> 
> Of course it is. I didn't mean to say it's a completely closed formation 
> according to its charter. But it is a proprietary (private) group per 
> se. From my point of view, it is solving the private marketing problems 
> of the Opera Software, of Ian Hickson etc.

I'm confused as to how you think it is private. All the work is done in 
the open, anyone is welcome to join, all input is listened to, there are 
no membership fees, no NDAs.

It is completely unrelated to marketing issues -- users don't care about 
standards and specifications. WHATWG is only doing technical work.


> The above-mentioned group, in spite of the patronizing tone it has 
> chosen for its site, is incomparable to the W3C.

Which is why I never did compare it to the W3C. (Of which, it should be 
noted, I am a very active member -- I'm currently on four working 
groups, two task forces, editor of multiple specifications, etc.)


> Competition in general is a good thing, while competition in the sphere 
> of standardization is very harmful and has to be avoided at any rate.

There is no competition here. The WHATWG is merely creating proposals for 
extending mature W3C specifications; proposals that have always (as 
described on the site itself) been intended for submission to standards 
organisations. Discussions are ongoing within the W3C about how such work 
should proceed, WHATWG is merely continuing technical work while the 
practical matters are handled in private with the W3C. (But I'm sure that 
doesn't make the W3C proprietary, despite requiring companies to pay 
$50,000 before they can partake in such discussions, despite there being 
no official mechanism for individuals to join at all, despite most 
discussions happening in private, and despite public feedback only being 
requested near the end of the technical process!)

It must also be asked if competition really is a bad thing. XSL competes 
with CSS, XHTML2 is competing with XHTML1, XForms is competing with HTML4 
Forms, PNG competes with GIF, UNICODE competes with ASCII and several 
dozen other encodings, etc. Competition induces innovation in standards 
just as much as in end-user products.


> Note that advertisement and off-topic messages are highly discouraged on 
> most of the mailing lists.

As is slander. Correcting misinformation is not.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Monday, 24 January 2005 13:25:28 UTC