@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social by the way, @lisamelton@mastodon.social might have some views.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social @lisamelton@mastodon.social At any rate, Dave Hyatt was a former Mozilla dev who switched to Apple and started Safari, and so this entire thing.
He was also representing Apple at WHATWG from what I understand.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social @lisamelton@mastodon.social And then we know how much Google pays Apple yearly since, well... neither 2004, the WHATWG start, nor 2008, the Chrome start, but... did you guess when?
2005.
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-apple-iphone-search-engine-safari-deal-20-billion-2022-2024-5
It's all coincidence until it isn't.
Google's enclosure of the web has over two decades of history, back when their motto was still "Don't be Evil".
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social The WHATWG position paper is from 2004: https://www.w3.org/2004/04/webapps-cdf-ws/papers/opera.html
The working draft cited there edited by Google. Full authors at the bottom:
https://whatwg.org/specs/web-forms/current-work/
XHTML 2.0 specs have been sitting in decision limbo since 2002, when it was finished: https://www.w3.org/2007/03/XHTML2-WG-charter
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social The last bit of glue, which I can only give you second hand from personal acquaintances I shall not out here, is the frustration in XHTML WG about Google and Apple blocking adoption with ever more spurious reasons.
There's probably an archive of minutes somewhere.
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social The public archive of XHTML starts in 2007, but the private part requires membership.
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-xhtml2/
@oblomov@sociale.network @cstross@wandering.shop @jwz@mastodon.social I mean, there's also that Mozilla Corporation was launched in 2005, and crypto turd Marc Andreessen decided that was a good moment to heap praise on the new CEO https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1972656_1972712_1974235,00.html
Tumultous times, which weren't all dark. Firefox started making waves after this.
So here's another thing to contemplate.