Sep 28 2007
Building a Better Standards Group
Alex Russell, lead architect of the insanely beautiful Dojo framework correctly points out in a recent post that the CSS3 spec is dead on arrival. Indeed, Alex aptly points out that the W3C has failed its mission wholesale of “Leading the web to it’s full potential…”.
Stifled by internal politics (of the crippling academic variety) and the biased needs of the corporate, for-profit members the W3C is irrelevant. It is very ironic that the body meant to drive innovation on a platform that exists and is successful because it’s open and free has been taken over by corporate, patent hungry interests.
Dad, I’m all grown up. What now?
The W3C cannot be fixed without massive change, and by design large organizations like the W3C resist change. The only viable fix is replacement.
A new organization must be created, composed of key in the trenches stakeholders (the people who actually do the innovating) to redefine three core specifications:
- CSS3;
- HTML (of the X or 5 variety); and,
- JavaScript.
In that order. This is important — it’s ordered from easiest spec to hardest spec. If these rival specifications can be created and adopted quickly and key browser support can be gained, then the nail will be in the coffin for the W3C.
While the Internet began in a university, it has left that setting completely. The practitioners have usurped the academics. The practitioner, the innovator, the entrepreneur, and the framework builder are the master architects now.
As Fred Brooks aptly demonstrates in the Mythical Man-Month, the master architect must be the final arbiter for a project to be successful.
I’m amused that you think CSS3 is the easiest of these specifications. I’d wager that it would be the hardest to implement if not the hardest to define properly. Also you left out the DOM, which isn’t the same as JavaScript (which Brendan Eich is already working on). So who are these “people who are actually doing the innovating” and why aren’t they submitting their innovative specs to the CSSWG? I think you need to answer that question before you start reinventing the wheel.