Hacker News Reader

Comment by DXL | Hacker News Reader

"I considered requiring Ogg Theora support in the spec, since we do have three implementations that are willing to implement it, but it wouldn't help get us true interoperabiliy, since the people who are willing to implement it are willing to do so regardless of the spec, and the people who aren't are not going to be swayed by what the spec says. "

That appears to be the permanent fate of the World Wide Web Consortium and its specs, unfortunately.

View on HN

The permanent fate of any specification is down to whether people are willing to implement it.

Whatsmore, the original intention of the W3C wasn't as a dictator to companies as to what to implement - the use of the term "recommendation" rather than "standard" is very much deliberate.

Right, but if the recommendations are just ignored, how are they relevant?

They're relevant because in practice the W3C is where vendors come together to develop web technologies, and the specification is the end result of that. The fact that vendors have, to some degree, implemented their specifications in the past also give them some weight. The specification should be seen as the end result of vendors coming together rather than something that's dictated to them by a standards body.

In any open platform, the fact that vendors are willing to follow specifications created by a standards body is the only thing that makes them relevant, whether the W3C or otherwise. There's no way to force people to implement a specification fully and correctly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com