Another Bureaucratic Failure

We can all enjoy a bit schadenfreude at Microsoft's expense. But it's sad to see a more noble organisation, the W3C, brought down too.

Still, the rule is simple : workings programs trump abstract "standards" any day. And the realpolitik is that if you have programs to execute something, you (may) have the (makings of) a de facto standard. If you don't, you don't have any kind of standard at all.

Ultimately the blog post gets it right. We're better off with a W3C that retrospectively "officialises" existing de facto standards that the browser makers are innovating, rather than tries to think up standards itself. 

John Hagel :

The next generation of the WWW may be driven by environments and tools that enhance serendipity. Companies that find ways to amplify serendipity may reap the greatest economic rewards as we all struggle to improve our return on attention.

What the W3C can do.

Scepticism about MySpace data-portability.

Details of the OOXML standards meeting.

Read Joel on IE8, standards and the mother of all flame-wars.

He thinks it will "break the web".

Update : he's wrong (sort of) about Postel. The point is that Postel wasn't trying to make a reference implementation. There's be nothing to stop the W3 making a reference implementation of the spec. and just telling M$ etc. to conform or be non-standard. That's not Postel's job though. His law is designed to get a flawed communication system off the ground, not to ensure standards. (As Spolsky kind of admits)

Will IE break the web?

Two views on standards :

Institutional view

An "organic" view. What we think we know about network externalities etc.