Future of the Web #2
By glazou on Wednesday 30 June 2004, 21:09 - Standards - Permalink
Yep people, this is really about the future of the Web. After the WHAT WG, this is another question mark about the relevance of the World Wide Web Consortium as an organization still able to lead the Web to its full potential. And unfortunately for the W3C, I have no doubt this new alliance will be more efficient than a W3C Working Group on the same topic.
Comments
W3C is not working on browser capabilities. I don't see the clash.
The only thing I see is browser foundations and plugin companies that makes their interaction easier.
And I don't agree with the fact that "lead[ing] the web to its full potential" is adding lots of (proprietary) plugins in a browser.
The point here is, it's not "lots of (proprietary) plugins in a browser" but "lots of (proprietary) plugins in any browser", making the web a more open and comfy place. If proprietary plugins are the way to go or not is another question, but I see them as a way to add common functionality to different platforms (aka browsers).
I know there are people who think Flash (the most common example) is stupid, and a lot of the things done in Flash also really are stupid - it's easier to create stupid things in Flash than in HTML. But both are possible, as is the opposite - Flash can be used to display complex processes, and it allows for a level of interactivity plain HTML sites don't (even if they're server-based and "dynamic" - this dynamic aspect still requires reloading a whole page, or other proprietary technologies, like JavaScript - and I prefer Flash to JavaScript).
Other applications are MathML, QuickTime, Java. My subjective internet experience would be rather boring without those...
The point here is, it will still be "lots of (proprietary) plugins in any browser on A platform".
Give me a flash plugin for mozilla on Linux/PPC...
...But about Flash and clash with W3C : I thought it was also the work of Mozilla (...and Opera ?) to promote W3C standards like SVG... And I wonder how Macromedia and Adobe will be able to seat together at the same table to speak on Flash...
glandium, right now that's true (altough there is a Flash plugin for Linux, I don't know about PPC). But they're working towards "on any platform" - let me cite them:
The new plugin API effort taps into a long standing, deeply rooted desire by plugin vendors to have their plugins work more seamlessly for all browsers and on all computing platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
Guido: let's be realistic. A Flash plugin written in a portable and non-compiled language (javascript?) is not likely to happen. Not from Macromedia, at least...
And the standardized API will only guaranty that the plugin will be called in the same way on each platform and navigator, not that they will ship it for all platforms.
This alliance is leading the web *browser* to its full potential.