Public releases prefixes off-by-default (was RE: Unprefixing CSS properties)

Tab:
>> I believe that we browsers shouldn't expose prefixed
>> properties in our public versions.  Exposing them in betas or
>> nightlies still lets people experiment with the features without them
>> showing up in publicly-exposed websites or adopted as valid practices.
>>
>> We've discussed this seriously within Chrome, and I believe roc likes
>> this as well.  There are difficulties with it (convincing the release
>> engineers to accept pushing an untested binary to beta because we
>> switched off some prefixed features), but I think it's doable.

Rob:
> I think it's a good idea overall. I would relax it slightly to say that
> "browsers shouldn't expose prefixed properties in our public versions
> *by default*." Both Firefox and Chrome routinely ship experimental stuff
> in release builds but disabled by default, explicitly enablable by the
> user. This reduces the risk of changing the binaries you ship, and lets
> authors more easily access the experimental features.


What's stopping Firefox and WebKit from doing this today (all prefixed properties are off-by-default in public versions)?

W3C / CSSWG policies aren't prohibiting such behavior.

If it's the right thing to do, why not flip the switch today?

Received on Thursday, 17 November 2011 19:23:56 UTC