“Tim Bernes-Lee, New HTML WG, and XHTML 2 vs. HTML 5”

Daniel Glazman, author of the Mozilla-based HTML editor Nvu, says in "Tim Berners-Lee, thank you,"

Warning, major changes ahead... Tim Berners-Lee just announced a new HTML Working Group that will focus on the future of HTML.

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I also posted (long before the WHAT-WG started) numerous blog posts on XHTML 2, and why I think it's not only a bad compromise, but also a bad solution.

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The strongest arguments in favor of TBL's decision were almost certainly (1) total lack of interest from all browser vendors for XHTML 2, all of them participating in the WHAT-WG (2) the image given by the Consortium to the public and its Members. If a crazy crowd of geeks like the WHAT-WG can do HTML5, what's the point for a Consortium again ?

I certainly do not forget this is also a major slap for the current HTML Working Group and the XHTML 2 zealots. Sorry guys, I warned you. I really did. Hundreds of times. And you never listened.

XHTML 2 is not totally dead yet, and TBL says a WG will still work on XHTML 2.

A few years ago I posted some comments about XHTML 2, saying that it was a good idea. Blah blah blah.

Looking back on that post now, I think that I was just being cranky/cantankerous/grumpy. My facts were right, but ignored too much. For example, XHTML 2 might solve some legacy problems with HTML, and it might have move us closer to the "semantic web," but it didn't include any great reasons for the masses to adopt it in the first place!

The WHAT-WG has been moving in much more interesting directions, and TBL acknowledges that they were part of the motivation for the all new HTML working group.

Announcements are easy, real progress is hard. There's no way to know what will come of this, but it's good to see that the W3C has finally taken its head out of the sand, acknowledged the huge disconnect, and attempted to do something substantive to address it.