W3C working group to be chaired by Microsoft???

Well it could go the other way and for the first time MS will abide by the standards... But this is a long shot, I think we should voice out to them (big tech corps) not to meddle with such important things...

I think if Microsoft got involved a lot of people would see the W3C as un-important (a waste of time).
It's kind of like Disney being involved in vehicle safety standards - a bit of a joke

That's a good point too, Busy. Even if they do operate fairly it will make many people suspect that they are biased and therefore have no credibility.

conrad;213689 wrote: I don't think this is a bad thing at all seeing as the majority of users out there use internet explorer, surely this makes microsoft the dominant party in the whole thing and means that everyone will be talking and working together.

Why? Having a dominant market share is irrelevant to whether they should, or how they ought to, chair this group. For everyone to be working together, Microsoft's part need only be that of a co-operative member of any rank.

conrad;213689 wrote: And before anyone moans, I'm sure microsoft will be putting in a lot of research into this and spending their non open source revenue.

I find this unlikely, as not even Chris Wilson wants the job, from a Microsoft-career perspective.

That said, I see no problem with Microsoft chairing this group. As far as I know, it is standard practice for members of an industry working group, who are often players with vested interests in the market, to take responsibility like this. There isn't a great risk of failure (or, conversely, of success) due to the chair, by the nature of its position; the chair doesn't have great executive powers, and will be moderated by other members, amongst whom are those with competing interests.

Strategically, it even makes sense. Delegating responsibility to a delinquent can encourage them to take ownership of a project and perhaps commit to its objective success. At least, it could persuade MS, if it is publicly seen to consider W3C standardisation a worthwhile exercise. Or not -- but the worst-case is not be a catastrophic loss.

I doubt the W3C's credibility is at stake. To me, they seem only to be engaging with its members intelligently, to achieve their independent goals.

Edit: Also, Wilson is named the 'Initial Chair'. I don't know the W3C's convention on appointments, but presumably this is not permanent.

conrad;213755 wrote: Another argument could be that as microsoft have a dominant share of the market that THEY are the industry standard.

By virtue of market share dominance alone, they may, by coincidence, be the de facto standard. That is not synonymous with specified standards yielded by industry-wide standardisation processes, which the W3C carries out.

Microsoft's internally generated standards are intended for use among Microsoft applications alone. They aren't industry-wide, by definition. The opposite is true of the W3C's standards.

I would agree that it also depends on how the organization works. I think sometimes the chair's job is just to facilitate discussion, not necessarily to make decisions for the group. And MS has been part of W3C working groups for a long time. It is also probably more work than regular participation and it could be hard to find someone to take on the responsibility. So that's a postive note if MS is willing to take a lead here.

Quote: They do need to work in conjunction and I do really hope they all agree on something and so I don't have to code using 3 browsers to ensure that it works. Would make life a lot easier for us all.

Although I agree with you here, I have learned to code for 3 (or more) browsers simply by complying to w3c and making semantic markup... so no problems on this point, just that I dont think there will be total transparency for a company with a related interest to chair a commission who has done good before without there help...

The problem with IE (at least in terms of CSS support) is that they just don't support stuff the others' don't - it's not that they support it differently. That happens too, but MS isn't alone in mis-interpreting standards sometimes. There are thngs that Mozilla and Opera have some problems with too. These are very specific things to implement and the standard doesn't always cover everything down to the letter.

They do have a lot of proprietary crap in there that developers often work with without considering what will happen in other browsers. I defintely do not agree that MS proprietary stuff should become a standard. Other browsers would probably get sued for implementing it anyway, even if they could figure out how to do it without a spec. MS would have to release it.

A lot of people do work together with the W3C on standards - including MS. Actually, I think MS has been more directly involved with developing the standards than Mozilla & Opera people are. And I believe they do look at who is doing what and go with that too, although Opera, Mozilla, and Safari mostly follow the standard.

Oh, when I posted that comment I meant what you said - that IE should set the standard. Sorry for not being clear

Off topic but, I think the W3 should enforce a 'standard' rendering engine on browser manufacturers, then the browsers can make themselves unique through features instead.

I don't think it will do any harm to have Microsoft involved. Firstly - he's not technically in charge, the specs are still designed by the W3 and I'm sure there are people above him that could kick him out if the suspected him to be deliberately steering the group in the wrong direction... Secondly, exposure to the W3 and the other members of the working group could actually result in the goodness rubbing off on him and being taken back to Microsoft for implementation...

I myself have recently taken the ITIL foundation course (it's a standard methodology for IT infrastructures and best practices in IT businesses) and since being exposed to it have taken my knowledge into my job and encouraged proper documentation and change management. My knowledge has rubbed off on a lot of other people and we've all become better for it.

Lol... I just assumed that the W3 was a democracy working for the good of the web... not just a corporate controlled shambles. Hmm... That single quote has just changed the way that I view the W3 quite significantly.

Hopefully, it will mean Microsoft will strive to make Internet Explorer more standards compliant and do all web developers a big favour.