Re: Policy for one vendor using the vendor-prefix from another vendor?

Web browsers tend to become what developers
ask them to become. By using prefixed properties
on popular sites, websites are asking browsers to
support them in order to show the website the
best way. If web developpers would not use or
would update the properties in a way that every
vendor prefix could be used, this problem would
not exist. Again, if we had defined a

               -draft-1-text-adjust property

no problem would be thrown here. The problem is
that many mobile sites now rely on the -webkit-
prefixed version. To make Mobile IE users weg exp-
erience as great as the one of iPhone Safari users,
there's no other way than implementing the
prefixed version of the property.

Regards,
François

(All this make me remember a blog post called
"iPhone Safari is the new IE6". Welcome in a world
where standards are coming too late, as usual...)

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Simon Fraser" <smfr@me.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 9:03 PM
To: <www-style@w3.org>
Subject: Policy for one vendor using the vendor-prefix from another vendor?

> We've noticed that IE Mobile for Windows has implemented support for 
> property with a -webkit-prefix:
> <http://blogs.msdn.com/iemobile/archive/2010/05/10/javascript-and-css-changes-in-ie-mobile-for-windows-phone-7.aspx>
>
> We believe that by convention, vendor prefixes are owned by the relevant 
> vendor, and that vendors supporting each others prefixes undermines the 
> vendor prefix system. A vendor should be able to change the behavior of a 
> vendor-prefixed property at any time, without having to worry about 
> another vendor who is squatting on the same prefix.
>
> You may argue that if a vendor implements the prefix from another vendor, 
> they do so entirely at their own risk. However, there's always a risk that 
> such a cross-vendor prefix usage becomes widely enough deployed that a 
> change in behavior by the original vendor would have too significant 
> consequences, leading to unwanted lock-in. This we would like to avoid.
>
> I propose that the section on vendor prefixes here
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-syntax/#vendor-specific>
> should strongly discourage cross-vendor prefix usage.
>
> Simon
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 11 May 2010 19:14:07 UTC