8 ms·

Web Technologies Need an Owner

75 points by joshaber 15y ago

olliesaunders 15y ago
What’s the W3C then?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- RyanMcGreal 15y ago
  Irrelevant, if you consider their decision to promote XHTML2 while the rest of the world committed to HTML5 - incidentally, a development that puts to rest the fear that the web can't evolve and stay relevant without a single BDFL.
  - olliesaunders 15y ago
    They may be crappy but they are still the organization in charge of the development and standardization of web technologies, which he is arguing doesn’t exist. It does. It just isn’t as good as we’d like.
    - RyanMcGreal 15y ago
      My point is that the W3C is most successful as the agent that documents retro-specs of the broad consensus among browser makers and developers and calls it a standard. The community is more or less self-governing.
- joehewitt 15y ago
  The W3C writes specs, not code. They do not own the actual rubber that hits the road, and so they are only indirectly responsible for what happens on the real web. I want to remove the separation of architecture from implementation and have one entity control both.
bonzoesc 15y ago
> Browser vendors are innovating in some areas, but they are stalled by the standards process in so many areas that is impossible to create a platform with a coherent, unified vision the way Apple has with Cocoa or the way Python has with Guido. Nobody actually wants that web; we'd have somebody's "coherent, unified vision" circa 1995, with a handful of updates every year or two. I like my web as a fierce competition between browser vendors to desperately catch up to their peers in terms of speed and features.
coderdude 15y ago
>>"Browser vendors are innovating in some areas, but they are stalled by the standards process in so many areas that is impossible to create a platform with a coherent, unified vision the way Apple has with Cocoa or the way Python has with Guido." Personally I don't think he has anything meaningful to say on this particular topic. Hard to tell because he can't even keep his examples consistent. "... the way Apple has with [a product] or the way Python has with [a person]." >>"Even if WebKit was the only game in town, it would still be crucial for it to have competent, sympathetic, benevolent leaders." This statement, as well as others in the article and his apparent association with Apple-related things makes me wonder if he has this point of view because of the whole Steve Jobs thing they have/had going on. The fact that he doesn't even mention the W3C or the WHATWG shows his point of view is skewed.
EGreg 15y ago
Well, I agree that WebKit should probably be adopted in Internet Explorer, so Microsoft can once again innovate in the browser space while helping everyone. Maybe they should join Google and Apple in embracing open source software and committing their changes into a free project. Because then everyone wins, including Microsoft. No more IE6 nonsense. We always have this question of centralized / decentralized. Whether it's social networks, or government, or the web. Flash was a centralized platform, and so what? Many people complain that iTunes and Flash etc. are not super accessible, and also that companies which exert influence tend to lock up their customers (except maybe Google and Yahoo :) The best example of this when it comes to the desktop was Microsoft. They wanted to get everyone into their ecosystem. Now Apple is the new Microsoft. I personally think that "open source" should always be a competitor to proprietary stuff. Whatever the centralized effort would be, it should be open source. I personally think javascript-based technologies like the browser, jQuery, like PhoneGap and like Node.js are going to become more and more important. So what we really need is a standard ECMAScript that is implemented correctly everywhere, and we're pretty much there.
epaulson 15y ago
This is sort of a cleaned-up version of his string of tweets from a year back: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/joe-hewitt-web-development/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/joe-hewitt-web-development/
guelo 15y ago
I am a fan of Joe Hewitt but this is crazy talk, especially coming from one of the heroes of the Mozilla revolution. It's as if he doesn't remember those dark days long ago when he was working on Firefox in what seemed like a lost cause, Microsoft was the defacto standard setter and single-handedly drove innovation in the web, it was awful. We must never go back to those days. I know Joe imagines some benevolent dictator or consortium, but it's just too risky. There's too much power in controlling the web and power corrupts. Look at what's happened to ICANN with the power they've been given. No, we must keep the power spread out, preferably we'd have more browser makers not fewer. The slow pace might be frustrating to the innovators on the cutting edge like Joe, but it's the only way.
- joehewitt 15y ago
  Exactly the kind of arrogance I cited. You don't want to risk a bad owner so you'll let the whole thing die from neglect by committee. I would rather have Microsoft be the only browser vendor than have the web shrink dramatically.
  - wf 15y ago
    I have very little real-world development experience so know these questions are relatively innocent: If there is one browser vendor do they not also control what is the cutting edge of technology? Wouldn't you be completely limited by them? Specifically, could you really imagine Microsoft setting the standards for the experience you have day to day on the web?
    - dangoor 15y ago
      Who needs to imagine? That's how it was a decade ago.
      - wf 15y ago
        Well, I'm only 22 and we didn't even have a computer until I was around 12, so my experience with web standards is relatively naive. I <3 the internet as it is today, and I at least, do have to imagine how atrocious it must have been with Microsoft setting the standard.
mapgrep 15y ago
"Let's face facts: the Web will never be the dominant platform." Hewitt's post hinges on that statement, presented without supporting evidence. But actually the Web is already dominant among the platforms Hewitt mentions (Web, Windows, iOS, and Android). Relevant stats: Web - 1.7 billion users as of July, given that 880 million people go to the single busiest website publicly measured by Google, and this site has a "reach" of 51 percent. (You can distill this same total from any of the smaller sites listed via simple division.) http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/ http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/ iOS - 38 million people as of April http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/19/a-look-at-ipad-users-apple-still-trouncing-android/?mod=yahoo_hs http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/19/a-look-at-ipad-users-... Android - 24 million people as of April http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/19/a-look-at-ipad-users-apple-still-trouncing-android/?mod=yahoo_hs http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/19/a-look-at-ipad-users-... Windows - 400 million Windows 7 license sold as of this month, the most popular version of Windows going. http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2011/07/11/400-million-windows-7-licenses-sold.aspx http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive... Even if piracy doubles total Windows 7 installs, you're still not halfway to total web users (which means trying to count creaky old XP as the same platform won't get you there, either). Hewitt is a smart guy, ex Facebook, built their iOS client, so clearly he has a thought a lot about platforms. But he undermines his arguments about the future when he is incorrect about the present.
- joehewitt 15y ago
  Sorry if I didn't make it clear I meant the web will never be the dominant platform in the future once the current trends play out. I am aware of current market share proportions.
  - mapgrep 15y ago
    Using the word "never" saves you from having to state when the web ceases to be the dominant platform. When do you think this will be? Something like "the web will never be the dominant platform, except for the past 10 years and the next 10 years" does lack a certain punch, but at least it would be specific :-) (And I appreciate your taking the time to write your blog post, and don't want to be a jerk, but the definition of never is "at no time in the past or future; on no occasion; not ever," so maybe you could rephrase to something like "the web cannot continue indefinitely being the dominant platform," which at least acknowledges its current strength.)
freemarketteddy 15y ago
Truth hurts doesnt it! I think Joe is spot on.The web is already miles behind native mobile platforms.Personally I can vouch for iOS.The kind of stuff you can do on iOS now just in terms of UI is just impossibly hard to do with HTML5 or any other web platform. But then if you think about it.Its not surprising at all.Of course you will have a much more power on a native platform than a web platform which is built on top of a native platform. In my opinion in the future you will have a browser and type in a url but a native app will open in the browser window.These native apps will be built for different platforms.The web app will be shown by default if a native app hasnt been developed for that platform.
- mahyarm 15y ago
  WebGL is picking up steam. Supported in Webkit and Firefox, with IE being the laggard (as usual). Once you have WebGL you have the building blocks needed for any kind of UI you want.
  - freemarketteddy 15y ago
    Yes WebGL is the first step....like OpenGLES ...next step would be something like CoreAnimation and CoreGraphics....then something like UIKit....(then something like Three20 haha!) Although I think its very hard for any company including Google or Facebook to make something the matches the design quality of these frameworks....The real problem is that no one company or person is going to take this responsibility...and hence even a good attempt will end up looking like a clusterfuck....and that is exactly what Joe is trying to say!...the Web needs its Apple! Not to mention that by the time something like UIKit exists for the Web Apple would be miles ahead!
- angryasian 15y ago
  just wondering what you consider is impossibly hard to do is ?
  - freemarketteddy 15y ago
    Check out the pulse app or the flipboard app or even the twitter app for the ipad!....its hard to even come close to the UIs of these apps on web platforms!..although Joe is doing some cool work on that front!
etherael 15y ago
Isn't this a little bit like asking for the days when IE6 was the ultimate in web technology back again? Look how that turned out.
dangoor 15y ago
While there are a couple of minor bits I agree with, overall I think Joe's off on this one. The web has five organizations pushing really hard on it at this point (Mozilla [my employer], Google, Apple, Microsoft and Opera). The web almost had HP. We'll see what happens with WebOS. The one part of his article that I somewhat agree with is that under the guidance of several entities (and lots and lots of people) the web may not have quite the same coherence as, say, Cocoa. I'm not sure that will be a problem. "The Web has no one who can ensure that the platform acquires cutting edge capabilities in a timely manner (camera access, anyone?)." Five years ago, even two years ago, would anyone even be questioning adding camera access to the web? I think there's been a huge shift in terms of how people view web technology. gmail was the original "holy crap" app that started us building information apps with better user experiences. It proceeded from there to add things like canvas and svg and, more recently, webgl and audio, making apps well beyond "information apps" possible. The "Boot to Gecko" (B2G) project which Mozilla kicked off a couple of months back is going to push quite firmly on adding all of the APIs needed for a modern mobile device. And, I might add, in conjunction with others in the standards bodies who are interested in such things. And what about the Metro announcement from last week? Sure, Microsoft's ideal scenario is to build on the web and lock people into APIs that are tied to their platform... but, seriously, wouldn't people just write shims? Wouldn't Microsoft ultimately have to follow the standard because they are not quite the monopoly they were before? The end of his post is telling: "The closest thing we have to that today is Chromium, but they have no foothold in mobile and are likely years away from having one. And so I end on a sad note" So, the crux of it would seem to be that Joe sees the world going mobile. I certainly agree. I got my start on a TRS-80 model III, and the stuff happening in mobile is the most exciting stuff I've seen in my entire career. I've been working with the web for 16 years. There has never been a time in the past when so much effort was being put into pushing the web-as-a-platform forward. It's huge and I, for one, think the best is yet to come.
- nupark2 15y ago
  The one part of his article that I somewhat agree with is that under the guidance of several entities (and lots and lots of people) the web may not have quite the same coherence as, say, Cocoa. I'm not sure that will be a problem. It's already a problem. In fact, it is the problem. The web application 'platform' is poor, incoherent, and its proponents highly resistant to the sweeping changes that would be necessary to compete with a native, proprietary platform like iOS. The best chance the 'web' has for success is with projects like NaCL, but even that will only fix the execution environment -- we'll still need higher-level platform frameworks upon which applications can be built. Perhaps Google will supply usable application frameworks, as they've done (if poorly) with Android. The browser makers (especially Mozilla) seem insistent on leaving us in the lurch, stuck with JavaScript, the DOM, and the painfully long lead times of standardization.
groby_b 15y ago
It's kind of amusing to read an article complaining about the walled garden of Facebook, and at the same time demanding central ownership for web technology. It's not only a possibility that a centralized web will be bad, it's inevitable. A central owner has _no_ incentive for improvement. The only reason e.g. Cocoa keeps improving is because it needs to compete.
- joehewitt 15y ago
  Has Linux stopped improving? Has Python stopped improving? Has jQuery stopped improving? It all depends on who the owner is.
  - groby_b 15y ago
    Linux doesn't own the OS market - far from it. Python doesn't own the language sector. jQuery doesn't own the JS library sector. They are all independent projects, and it's _good_ for them to have a BDFL. Asking for one for the entire web is not a good plan because it would exclude competition. That's where the flaw in the argument is. And while it'd be nice if browser vendors could just go off and improve along (from a browser vendor's point of view), it absolutely sucks for every single developer and the users. Surely, you remember "this website runs only on...". This is exactly what you see in the apps market - applications only running on certain devices, locking in the users. Sure, for you as a developer it's convenient. For users, it's a bad idea.
    - joehewitt 15y ago
      My point wasn't that Linux or Python or jQuery own their sectors. I responding to your claim that a single owner promotes stagnation. It's important to distinguish the Internet from the collection of web technologies. The Internet is the thing that needs to remain open and uncontrolled.
      - groby_b 15y ago
        My point is that a central owner _without competition_ stifles innovation. There's only one web, so a central owner would be a bad thing - for the web. To quote your article "To thrive, HTML and company need what those other platforms have: a single source repository and a good owner to drive it" The only other way to read that is that you're advocating splintering web technology into HTML-Moz, HTML-IE, HTML-Cr and so on. While that might make for a better developer experience for somebody who develops apps for _one_ of those platforms, it's a disaster in terms of interoperability. Which is kind of one of the key points of "The Web". We were heading down that path for a while with browser-specific extensions, and it lead to large problems. For users, because they needed to have "just the right browser". And for many backend services, because actually extracting data from web pages required understanding all competing standards. I care mostly about the users. The web of yore, with "best viewed with" stickers was a debacle in terms of UX.
tambourine_man 15y ago
The Web doesn't have an owner, it has several. Competing against it other. That's why it is thriving. It had no owner and it suffered when MS had 95% of the Web's market share, cause MS's platform is Windows, not the Web. Controlling it was MS's way of keeping Windows relevant.
- bostonvaulter2 15y ago
  In your mind, who are the owners?
  - tambourine_man 15y ago
    Well, Apple, Google, Mozilla and MS control the browser scene, and that's what I think Joe meant by platform. Things are a little more complicated in the backend. You could add Facebook to the pack but, though it has changed how people use the Web, it didn't contribute much to improving the platform. And in a sense, although it may sound idealistically foolish, all of us. A long time ago, I helped fixing a bug that prevented Webkit and Gecko from connecting to my bank's crappy site, making me launch VirtualPC just about everyday. A few years later, I wrapped a perl script in a GUI that spared the users of a broadband provider from having to manually login in on the carrier's “portal” just to use the Web. A lot of people used it and they eventually changed that annoying behavior. There's nothing stopping you from trying to have an influence.
nextparadigms 15y ago
I disagree that the web tech should be owned by a company. It seems to me the "committee" has done a much better job the Microsoft alone, so far. But if there was to be such company, it should clearly be Google. Both Apple and Microsoft don't really have their interests aligned with the web. They make money from hardware or from selling OS licenses. By default, that means that their #1 priority is to do that - and in many cases at the expense of the web. If they would own it, and they would ever have a conflict of interest between the web and their main platform, they would choose their main platform. But Google have their interests much more aligned with the web. They care about making the web faster, more advanced, and so on, because they indirectly make money from that. But of course, even Google owning the tech would bring it's own set of problems, and this will happen with any company owning it. Any company who would own it would "corrupt" it in some way, if only to be better for their own products or less good for the others. That's why the Internet is decentralized in many ways, and it's the beauty of the Internet. We've had many closed platforms before, but none like the Internet. And the Internet is the greatest one by far, and I doubt it's by coincidence. If you look at other "cross-platform" technologies, like Flash for example, they ultimately fail, because a single owner can't make sure it works on absolutely every platform and browsers, with no problems. It requires too much work. And again, that's one of the beauties of the web technologies, that every browser has to do their own implementation of the spec as good as possible, and compete with each other for that. One more thing. Yes, iOS and Android did help bring back to popularity the native applications, but this is not an "ultimate" win. It's just a cycle. We've had native apps when the PC's emerged, then we had web-apps becoming popular. Then the smartphones emerged with slow processors (compared to PC's) and native apps started being popular again. But HTML5 is already starting to become popular on mobiles, and with at least 3-4 platforms, you can be sure the web will "win", at least this cycle, until a new low-performance tech comes along and native apps are back.
nextparadigms 15y ago
I disagree that the web tech should be owned by a company. It seems to me the "committee" has done a much better job the Microsoft alone, so far. But if there was to be such company, it should clearly be Google. Both Apple and Microsoft don't really have their interests aligned with the web. They make money from hardware or from selling OS licenses. By default, that means that their #1 priority is to do that - and in many cases at the expense of the web. If they would own it, and they would ever have a conflict of interest between the web and their main platform, they would choose their main platform. But Google have their interests much more aligned with the web. They care about making the web faster, more advanced, and so on, because they indirectly make money from that. But of course, even Google owning the tech would bring it's own set of problems, and this will happen with any company owning it. Any company who would own it would "corrupt" it in some way, if only to be better for their own products or less good for the others. That's why the Internet is decentralized in many ways, and it's the beauty of the Internet. We've had many closed platforms before, but none like the Internet. And the Internet is the greatest one by far, and I doubt it's by coincidence. If you look at other "cross-platform" technologies, like Flash for example, they ultimately fail, because a single owner can't make sure it works on absolutely every platform and browsers, with no problems. It requires too much work. And again, that's one of the beauties of the web technologies, that every browser has to do their own implementation of the spec as good as possible, and compete with each other for that. One more thing. Yes, iOS and Android did help bring back to popularity the native applications, but this is not an "ultimate" win. It's just a cycle. We've had native apps when the PC's emerged, then we had web-apps becoming popular. Then the smartphones emerged with slow processors (compared to PC's) and native apps started being popular again. But HTML5 is already starting to become popular on mobiles, and with at least 3-4 platforms, you can be sure the web will "win", at least this cycle, until a new low-performance tech comes along and native apps are back.
nextparadigms 15y ago
I disagree that the web tech should be owned by a company. It seems to me the "committee" has done a much better job than Microsoft alone, so far. But if there was to be such company, it should be Google. Both Apple and Microsoft don't really have their interests aligned with the web. They make money from hardware or from selling OS licenses. By default, that means that their #1 priority is to do that - and in many cases at the expense of the web. If they would own it, and they would ever have a conflict of interest between the web and their main platform, they would choose their main platform. But Google have their interests much more aligned with the web. They care about making the web faster, more advanced, and so on, because they indirectly make money from that. But of course, even Google owning the tech would bring its own set of problems, and this will happen with any company owning it. Any company who would own it would "corrupt" it in some way, if only to be better for their own products or less good for the others. That's why the Internet is decentralized in many ways, and it's the beauty of the Internet. We've had many closed platforms before, but none like the Internet. And the Internet is the greatest one by far, and I doubt it's by coincidence. If you look at other "cross-platform" technologies, like Flash for example, they ultimately fail, because a single owner can't make sure it works on absolutely every platform and browsers, with no problems. It requires too much work. And again, that's one of the beauties of the web technologies, that every browser has to do their own implementation of the spec as good as possible, and compete with each other for that. I don't think you can do something "cross-platform" without having all the players involved, or as many as possible. How do you ensure the needs of every platform are met? Will Google care about Microsoft's needs for the web? Would Microsoft make HTML specs that take advantage of Apple's hardware? This is why you have a "standards body". Because otherwise the standard would be whatever that company needs and wants from the web. One more thing. Yes, iOS and Android did help bring back to popularity the native applications, but this is not an "ultimate" win. It's just a cycle. We've had native apps when the PC's emerged, then we had web-apps becoming popular. Then the smartphones emerged with slow processors (compared to PC's) and native apps started being popular again. But HTML5 is already starting to become popular on mobiles, and with at least 3-4 platforms, you can be sure the web will "win", at least this cycle, until a new low-performance tech comes along and native apps are back.
wavephorm 15y ago
I think he is underestimating the quantum leap that web technologies have made in the past 2 years. Between canvas, audio & audio data, video tag, css3, websockets, webworkers, webgl, touchscreen events, and new server tech like nodejs... there are now so many new API's to learn and work with that most web developers haven't even started to catch up yet. There's a lot of room here, the capabilities of the permutations of these technologies together will take years to fully realize. It will take years to write libraries to build the power-features necessary to really take this stuff to the next level. The power to build a amazing new apps is now here. It took 10 years for this leap to happen. Just give it some time for web developers to catch up.
- ceejayoz 15y ago
  Interesting point. XMLHTTPRequest was out in 1999, but it took until 2005 for it to really catch on with Google Maps etc. coming out.
- Me1000 15y ago
  Compare that to the progress of native development. Apple comes out with new cool things on iOS every year, whereas on the web it takes 5 years to get something new that is 10 years behind the native counterparts.
  - drgath 15y ago
    The difference is that the iOS stuff only runs on $500 devices. The web stuff runs on just about everything. No one ever said standards were easy.
    - Me1000 15y ago
      Everything the web runs on now is much more advanced than the computers of 10 years ago. Joe's point he made a year ago is still true today, but it hasn't happened. "Browser makers need to go nuts with non-standard APIs and let the W3C standardize later"
- nikcub 15y ago
earl 15y ago
Isn't this similar to what happened with opengl (industry consortium, no clear driver) vs directx (ms owns; highly motivated; actually pretty decent a couple revs in)? Carmack seems to now find DirectX superior [1]. Note I'm not a graphics programmer so this is just my superficial understanding of the matter. The quote from AMD's dev relations manager is damning: "AMD's GPU worldwide developer relations manager, Richard Huddy, agrees. He added that the actual innovation in graphics has been driven by Microsoft in the last ten or so years. 'OpenGL has largely been tracking that, rather than coming up with new methods,' he said. 'The geometry shader, for example, which came in with Vista and DirectX 10, is wholly Microsoft's invention in the first place.'" [1 also] [1] http://www.tomshardware.com/news/john-Carmack-DirectX-OpenGL-API-Doom,12372.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/john-Carmack-DirectX-OpenGL...
neilk 15y ago
I don't understand the argument. Joe is saying that the web stack (that is, HTTP/HTML/JS/CSS) deserves to be saved. And that the only way to save it is to have somebody own it. But what makes the web stack special if someone owns it? Why is it worth saving? Let's face it, if you actually bought The Web(tm) from a vendor, you'd ask for your money back.
gojomo 15y ago
The web has already crushed a bunch of 'owned' platforms that had strong-willed, deep-pocketed stewards. A good run for iOS, and a few features where the web lags, doesn't change the immense power of the web commons platform. The things proven-out by adjacent proprietary platforms will be assimilated, in a few years' time — plenty of time for multivendor adoption and mass-market usership. (It won't be standards bodies that lead the way — they never do. At best they can codify consensus after the fact, and lightly shame laggards. Instead a rotating selection of innovators, in different categories, will drive change.)
braindead_in 15y ago
Why can't it be both native and web apps sharing the application space together? Each have their own strengths and one does not necessarily have to dominate over the other. There will always be use cases where a native app makes more sense and vice-verse. There is enough depth and breadth in the applications domain to allow both of them to thrive.
tlianza 15y ago
One thing these discussions seem to be slipping into is "the web" vs. "native" while skipping the fact that "native" is not a thing, it's a collection of (competing!) things... and they all also run web apps. Until one native platform captures more usage than the browser, which is impossible unless platforms start to drop the browser, the web will by definition be dominant if dominance is measured by addressable market.
simonhamp 15y ago
Ultimately, I think there is some truth to what Joe is saying. We have already seen the web stagnate under the reign of IE6 - almost a decade of no real innovation. As web developers, we are limited by what the browsers are capable of. That's not to say we don't desire more... hence why a good proportion of devs and designers are using the very latest technology even though it hasn't been fully ratified by it's standards bodies. People _want_ to innovate on the web. With every single one of the other platforms, the web comes for free - they have a browser and a working HTTP stack. I think the challenge is protecting users. The fact that web is such a widely-used platform means even small changes to the supporting technologies can have vast security repercussions. It's not ownership that's the problem - it's fear. What we need is a browser vendor that's prepared to stick it's neck out, to be daring with the technologies. Also fear of accountability... as soon as you become the leader in the browser wars you become accountable for a huge proportion of the world's web experience. This was why IE stagnated. So as a browser vendor, who do you cater for? The billions who just use your software, or the few-million who want to innovate on it? This is why taking ownership is not an option. I would argue that browser vendors would actually prefer to have an equal proportion of users. If Android and iOS had that sort of reach, they would face the same problem. The difference being that some platforms actually make more money out of a wider reach. This changes the dynamic somewhat - of course the owners of those technologies want to innovate, it's a huge income stream. But if someone took charge of the web, who would get all of the money? Who would pay? So there's little incentive for ownership and in fact the last few decades have proven that there doesn't need to be ownership of the web to make it work. All we need is someone to stick their neck out - just like Apple did with the iPhone.

75 points by joshaber 15y ago

olliesaunders 15y ago

What’s the W3C then?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
Irrelevant, if you consider their decision to promote XHTML2 while the rest of the world committed to HTML5 - incidentally, a development that puts to rest the fear that the web can't evolve and stay relevant without a single BDFL.
- olliesaunders 15y ago
  They may be crappy but they are still the organization in charge of the development and standardization of web technologies, which he is arguing doesn’t exist. It does. It just isn’t as good as we’d like.
  - RyanMcGreal 15y ago
    My point is that the W3C is most successful as the agent that documents retro-specs of the broad consensus among browser makers and developers and calls it a standard. The community is more or less self-governing.
joehewitt 15y ago
The W3C writes specs, not code. They do not own the actual rubber that hits the road, and so they are only indirectly responsible for what happens on the real web. I want to remove the separation of architecture from implementation and have one entity control both.

bonzoesc 15y ago

> Browser vendors are innovating in some areas, but they are stalled by the standards process in so many areas that is impossible to create a platform with a coherent, unified vision the way Apple has with Cocoa or the way Python has with Guido. Nobody actually wants that web; we'd have somebody's "coherent, unified vision" circa 1995, with a handful of updates every year or two. I like my web as a fierce competition between browser vendors to desperately catch up to their peers in terms of speed and features.

coderdude 15y ago

>>"Browser vendors are innovating in some areas, but they are stalled by the standards process in so many areas that is impossible to create a platform with a coherent, unified vision the way Apple has with Cocoa or the way Python has with Guido." Personally I don't think he has anything meaningful to say on this particular topic. Hard to tell because he can't even keep his examples consistent. "... the way Apple has with [a product] or the way Python has with [a person]." >>"Even if WebKit was the only game in town, it would still be crucial for it to have competent, sympathetic, benevolent leaders." This statement, as well as others in the article and his apparent association with Apple-related things makes me wonder if he has this point of view because of the whole Steve Jobs thing they have/had going on. The fact that he doesn't even mention the W3C or the WHATWG shows his point of view is skewed.

EGreg 15y ago

Well, I agree that WebKit should probably be adopted in Internet Explorer, so Microsoft can once again innovate in the browser space while helping everyone. Maybe they should join Google and Apple in embracing open source software and committing their changes into a free project. Because then everyone wins, including Microsoft. No more IE6 nonsense. We always have this question of centralized / decentralized. Whether it's social networks, or government, or the web. Flash was a centralized platform, and so what? Many people complain that iTunes and Flash etc. are not super accessible, and also that companies which exert influence tend to lock up their customers (except maybe Google and Yahoo :) The best example of this when it comes to the desktop was Microsoft. They wanted to get everyone into their ecosystem. Now Apple is the new Microsoft. I personally think that "open source" should always be a competitor to proprietary stuff. Whatever the centralized effort would be, it should be open source. I personally think javascript-based technologies like the browser, jQuery, like PhoneGap and like Node.js are going to become more and more important. So what we really need is a standard ECMAScript that is implemented correctly everywhere, and we're pretty much there.

epaulson 15y ago

This is sort of a cleaned-up version of his string of tweets from a year back: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/joe-hewitt-web-development/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/joe-hewitt-web-development/

guelo 15y ago

I am a fan of Joe Hewitt but this is crazy talk, especially coming from one of the heroes of the Mozilla revolution. It's as if he doesn't remember those dark days long ago when he was working on Firefox in what seemed like a lost cause, Microsoft was the defacto standard setter and single-handedly drove innovation in the web, it was awful. We must never go back to those days. I know Joe imagines some benevolent dictator or consortium, but it's just too risky. There's too much power in controlling the web and power corrupts. Look at what's happened to ICANN with the power they've been given. No, we must keep the power spread out, preferably we'd have more browser makers not fewer. The slow pace might be frustrating to the innovators on the cutting edge like Joe, but it's the only way.

joehewitt 15y ago
Exactly the kind of arrogance I cited. You don't want to risk a bad owner so you'll let the whole thing die from neglect by committee. I would rather have Microsoft be the only browser vendor than have the web shrink dramatically.
- wf 15y ago
  I have very little real-world development experience so know these questions are relatively innocent: If there is one browser vendor do they not also control what is the cutting edge of technology? Wouldn't you be completely limited by them? Specifically, could you really imagine Microsoft setting the standards for the experience you have day to day on the web?
  - dangoor 15y ago
    Who needs to imagine? That's how it was a decade ago.
    - wf 15y ago
      Well, I'm only 22 and we didn't even have a computer until I was around 12, so my experience with web standards is relatively naive. I <3 the internet as it is today, and I at least, do have to imagine how atrocious it must have been with Microsoft setting the standard.

mapgrep 15y ago

"Let's face facts: the Web will never be the dominant platform." Hewitt's post hinges on that statement, presented without supporting evidence. But actually the Web is already dominant among the platforms Hewitt mentions (Web, Windows, iOS, and Android). Relevant stats: Web - 1.7 billion users as of July, given that 880 million people go to the single busiest website publicly measured by Google, and this site has a "reach" of 51 percent. (You can distill this same total from any of the smaller sites listed via simple division.) http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/ http://www.google.com/adplanner/static/top1000/ iOS - 38 million people as of April http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/19/a-look-at-ipad-users-apple-still-trouncing-android/?mod=yahoo_hs http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/19/a-look-at-ipad-users-... Android - 24 million people as of April http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/19/a-look-at-ipad-users-apple-still-trouncing-android/?mod=yahoo_hs http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/04/19/a-look-at-ipad-users-... Windows - 400 million Windows 7 license sold as of this month, the most popular version of Windows going. http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2011/07/11/400-million-windows-7-licenses-sold.aspx http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive... Even if piracy doubles total Windows 7 installs, you're still not halfway to total web users (which means trying to count creaky old XP as the same platform won't get you there, either). Hewitt is a smart guy, ex Facebook, built their iOS client, so clearly he has a thought a lot about platforms. But he undermines his arguments about the future when he is incorrect about the present.

joehewitt 15y ago
Sorry if I didn't make it clear I meant the web will never be the dominant platform in the future once the current trends play out. I am aware of current market share proportions.
- mapgrep 15y ago
  Using the word "never" saves you from having to state when the web ceases to be the dominant platform. When do you think this will be? Something like "the web will never be the dominant platform, except for the past 10 years and the next 10 years" does lack a certain punch, but at least it would be specific :-) (And I appreciate your taking the time to write your blog post, and don't want to be a jerk, but the definition of never is "at no time in the past or future; on no occasion; not ever," so maybe you could rephrase to something like "the web cannot continue indefinitely being the dominant platform," which at least acknowledges its current strength.)

freemarketteddy 15y ago

Truth hurts doesnt it! I think Joe is spot on.The web is already miles behind native mobile platforms.Personally I can vouch for iOS.The kind of stuff you can do on iOS now just in terms of UI is just impossibly hard to do with HTML5 or any other web platform. But then if you think about it.Its not surprising at all.Of course you will have a much more power on a native platform than a web platform which is built on top of a native platform. In my opinion in the future you will have a browser and type in a url but a native app will open in the browser window.These native apps will be built for different platforms.The web app will be shown by default if a native app hasnt been developed for that platform.

mahyarm 15y ago
WebGL is picking up steam. Supported in Webkit and Firefox, with IE being the laggard (as usual). Once you have WebGL you have the building blocks needed for any kind of UI you want.
- freemarketteddy 15y ago
  Yes WebGL is the first step....like OpenGLES ...next step would be something like CoreAnimation and CoreGraphics....then something like UIKit....(then something like Three20 haha!) Although I think its very hard for any company including Google or Facebook to make something the matches the design quality of these frameworks....The real problem is that no one company or person is going to take this responsibility...and hence even a good attempt will end up looking like a clusterfuck....and that is exactly what Joe is trying to say!...the Web needs its Apple! Not to mention that by the time something like UIKit exists for the Web Apple would be miles ahead!
angryasian 15y ago
just wondering what you consider is impossibly hard to do is ?
- freemarketteddy 15y ago
  Check out the pulse app or the flipboard app or even the twitter app for the ipad!....its hard to even come close to the UIs of these apps on web platforms!..although Joe is doing some cool work on that front!

etherael 15y ago

Isn't this a little bit like asking for the days when IE6 was the ultimate in web technology back again? Look how that turned out.

dangoor 15y ago

While there are a couple of minor bits I agree with, overall I think Joe's off on this one. The web has five organizations pushing really hard on it at this point (Mozilla [my employer], Google, Apple, Microsoft and Opera). The web almost had HP. We'll see what happens with WebOS. The one part of his article that I somewhat agree with is that under the guidance of several entities (and lots and lots of people) the web may not have quite the same coherence as, say, Cocoa. I'm not sure that will be a problem. "The Web has no one who can ensure that the platform acquires cutting edge capabilities in a timely manner (camera access, anyone?)." Five years ago, even two years ago, would anyone even be questioning adding camera access to the web? I think there's been a huge shift in terms of how people view web technology. gmail was the original "holy crap" app that started us building information apps with better user experiences. It proceeded from there to add things like canvas and svg and, more recently, webgl and audio, making apps well beyond "information apps" possible. The "Boot to Gecko" (B2G) project which Mozilla kicked off a couple of months back is going to push quite firmly on adding all of the APIs needed for a modern mobile device. And, I might add, in conjunction with others in the standards bodies who are interested in such things. And what about the Metro announcement from last week? Sure, Microsoft's ideal scenario is to build on the web and lock people into APIs that are tied to their platform... but, seriously, wouldn't people just write shims? Wouldn't Microsoft ultimately have to follow the standard because they are not quite the monopoly they were before? The end of his post is telling: "The closest thing we have to that today is Chromium, but they have no foothold in mobile and are likely years away from having one. And so I end on a sad note" So, the crux of it would seem to be that Joe sees the world going mobile. I certainly agree. I got my start on a TRS-80 model III, and the stuff happening in mobile is the most exciting stuff I've seen in my entire career. I've been working with the web for 16 years. There has never been a time in the past when so much effort was being put into pushing the web-as-a-platform forward. It's huge and I, for one, think the best is yet to come.

nupark2 15y ago
The one part of his article that I somewhat agree with is that under the guidance of several entities (and lots and lots of people) the web may not have quite the same coherence as, say, Cocoa. I'm not sure that will be a problem. It's already a problem. In fact, it is the problem. The web application 'platform' is poor, incoherent, and its proponents highly resistant to the sweeping changes that would be necessary to compete with a native, proprietary platform like iOS. The best chance the 'web' has for success is with projects like NaCL, but even that will only fix the execution environment -- we'll still need higher-level platform frameworks upon which applications can be built. Perhaps Google will supply usable application frameworks, as they've done (if poorly) with Android. The browser makers (especially Mozilla) seem insistent on leaving us in the lurch, stuck with JavaScript, the DOM, and the painfully long lead times of standardization.

groby_b 15y ago

It's kind of amusing to read an article complaining about the walled garden of Facebook, and at the same time demanding central ownership for web technology. It's not only a possibility that a centralized web will be bad, it's inevitable. A central owner has _no_ incentive for improvement. The only reason e.g. Cocoa keeps improving is because it needs to compete.

joehewitt 15y ago
Has Linux stopped improving? Has Python stopped improving? Has jQuery stopped improving? It all depends on who the owner is.
- groby_b 15y ago
  Linux doesn't own the OS market - far from it. Python doesn't own the language sector. jQuery doesn't own the JS library sector. They are all independent projects, and it's _good_ for them to have a BDFL. Asking for one for the entire web is not a good plan because it would exclude competition. That's where the flaw in the argument is. And while it'd be nice if browser vendors could just go off and improve along (from a browser vendor's point of view), it absolutely sucks for every single developer and the users. Surely, you remember "this website runs only on...". This is exactly what you see in the apps market - applications only running on certain devices, locking in the users. Sure, for you as a developer it's convenient. For users, it's a bad idea.
  - joehewitt 15y ago
    My point wasn't that Linux or Python or jQuery own their sectors. I responding to your claim that a single owner promotes stagnation. It's important to distinguish the Internet from the collection of web technologies. The Internet is the thing that needs to remain open and uncontrolled.
    - groby_b 15y ago
      My point is that a central owner _without competition_ stifles innovation. There's only one web, so a central owner would be a bad thing - for the web. To quote your article "To thrive, HTML and company need what those other platforms have: a single source repository and a good owner to drive it" The only other way to read that is that you're advocating splintering web technology into HTML-Moz, HTML-IE, HTML-Cr and so on. While that might make for a better developer experience for somebody who develops apps for _one_ of those platforms, it's a disaster in terms of interoperability. Which is kind of one of the key points of "The Web". We were heading down that path for a while with browser-specific extensions, and it lead to large problems. For users, because they needed to have "just the right browser". And for many backend services, because actually extracting data from web pages required understanding all competing standards. I care mostly about the users. The web of yore, with "best viewed with" stickers was a debacle in terms of UX.

tambourine_man 15y ago

The Web doesn't have an owner, it has several. Competing against it other. That's why it is thriving. It had no owner and it suffered when MS had 95% of the Web's market share, cause MS's platform is Windows, not the Web. Controlling it was MS's way of keeping Windows relevant.

bostonvaulter2 15y ago
In your mind, who are the owners?
- tambourine_man 15y ago
  Well, Apple, Google, Mozilla and MS control the browser scene, and that's what I think Joe meant by platform. Things are a little more complicated in the backend. You could add Facebook to the pack but, though it has changed how people use the Web, it didn't contribute much to improving the platform. And in a sense, although it may sound idealistically foolish, all of us. A long time ago, I helped fixing a bug that prevented Webkit and Gecko from connecting to my bank's crappy site, making me launch VirtualPC just about everyday. A few years later, I wrapped a perl script in a GUI that spared the users of a broadband provider from having to manually login in on the carrier's “portal” just to use the Web. A lot of people used it and they eventually changed that annoying behavior. There's nothing stopping you from trying to have an influence.

nextparadigms 15y ago

I disagree that the web tech should be owned by a company. It seems to me the "committee" has done a much better job the Microsoft alone, so far. But if there was to be such company, it should clearly be Google. Both Apple and Microsoft don't really have their interests aligned with the web. They make money from hardware or from selling OS licenses. By default, that means that their #1 priority is to do that - and in many cases at the expense of the web. If they would own it, and they would ever have a conflict of interest between the web and their main platform, they would choose their main platform. But Google have their interests much more aligned with the web. They care about making the web faster, more advanced, and so on, because they indirectly make money from that. But of course, even Google owning the tech would bring it's own set of problems, and this will happen with any company owning it. Any company who would own it would "corrupt" it in some way, if only to be better for their own products or less good for the others. That's why the Internet is decentralized in many ways, and it's the beauty of the Internet. We've had many closed platforms before, but none like the Internet. And the Internet is the greatest one by far, and I doubt it's by coincidence. If you look at other "cross-platform" technologies, like Flash for example, they ultimately fail, because a single owner can't make sure it works on absolutely every platform and browsers, with no problems. It requires too much work. And again, that's one of the beauties of the web technologies, that every browser has to do their own implementation of the spec as good as possible, and compete with each other for that. One more thing. Yes, iOS and Android did help bring back to popularity the native applications, but this is not an "ultimate" win. It's just a cycle. We've had native apps when the PC's emerged, then we had web-apps becoming popular. Then the smartphones emerged with slow processors (compared to PC's) and native apps started being popular again. But HTML5 is already starting to become popular on mobiles, and with at least 3-4 platforms, you can be sure the web will "win", at least this cycle, until a new low-performance tech comes along and native apps are back.

nextparadigms 15y ago

I disagree that the web tech should be owned by a company. It seems to me the "committee" has done a much better job than Microsoft alone, so far. But if there was to be such company, it should be Google. Both Apple and Microsoft don't really have their interests aligned with the web. They make money from hardware or from selling OS licenses. By default, that means that their #1 priority is to do that - and in many cases at the expense of the web. If they would own it, and they would ever have a conflict of interest between the web and their main platform, they would choose their main platform. But Google have their interests much more aligned with the web. They care about making the web faster, more advanced, and so on, because they indirectly make money from that. But of course, even Google owning the tech would bring its own set of problems, and this will happen with any company owning it. Any company who would own it would "corrupt" it in some way, if only to be better for their own products or less good for the others. That's why the Internet is decentralized in many ways, and it's the beauty of the Internet. We've had many closed platforms before, but none like the Internet. And the Internet is the greatest one by far, and I doubt it's by coincidence. If you look at other "cross-platform" technologies, like Flash for example, they ultimately fail, because a single owner can't make sure it works on absolutely every platform and browsers, with no problems. It requires too much work. And again, that's one of the beauties of the web technologies, that every browser has to do their own implementation of the spec as good as possible, and compete with each other for that. I don't think you can do something "cross-platform" without having all the players involved, or as many as possible. How do you ensure the needs of every platform are met? Will Google care about Microsoft's needs for the web? Would Microsoft make HTML specs that take advantage of Apple's hardware? This is why you have a "standards body". Because otherwise the standard would be whatever that company needs and wants from the web. One more thing. Yes, iOS and Android did help bring back to popularity the native applications, but this is not an "ultimate" win. It's just a cycle. We've had native apps when the PC's emerged, then we had web-apps becoming popular. Then the smartphones emerged with slow processors (compared to PC's) and native apps started being popular again. But HTML5 is already starting to become popular on mobiles, and with at least 3-4 platforms, you can be sure the web will "win", at least this cycle, until a new low-performance tech comes along and native apps are back.

wavephorm 15y ago

I think he is underestimating the quantum leap that web technologies have made in the past 2 years. Between canvas, audio & audio data, video tag, css3, websockets, webworkers, webgl, touchscreen events, and new server tech like nodejs... there are now so many new API's to learn and work with that most web developers haven't even started to catch up yet. There's a lot of room here, the capabilities of the permutations of these technologies together will take years to fully realize. It will take years to write libraries to build the power-features necessary to really take this stuff to the next level. The power to build a amazing new apps is now here. It took 10 years for this leap to happen. Just give it some time for web developers to catch up.

ceejayoz 15y ago
Interesting point. XMLHTTPRequest was out in 1999, but it took until 2005 for it to really catch on with Google Maps etc. coming out.
Me1000 15y ago
Compare that to the progress of native development. Apple comes out with new cool things on iOS every year, whereas on the web it takes 5 years to get something new that is 10 years behind the native counterparts.
- drgath 15y ago
  The difference is that the iOS stuff only runs on $500 devices. The web stuff runs on just about everything. No one ever said standards were easy.
  - Me1000 15y ago
    Everything the web runs on now is much more advanced than the computers of 10 years ago. Joe's point he made a year ago is still true today, but it hasn't happened. "Browser makers need to go nuts with non-standard APIs and let the W3C standardize later"
nikcub 15y ago

earl 15y ago

Isn't this similar to what happened with opengl (industry consortium, no clear driver) vs directx (ms owns; highly motivated; actually pretty decent a couple revs in)? Carmack seems to now find DirectX superior [1]. Note I'm not a graphics programmer so this is just my superficial understanding of the matter. The quote from AMD's dev relations manager is damning: "AMD's GPU worldwide developer relations manager, Richard Huddy, agrees. He added that the actual innovation in graphics has been driven by Microsoft in the last ten or so years. 'OpenGL has largely been tracking that, rather than coming up with new methods,' he said. 'The geometry shader, for example, which came in with Vista and DirectX 10, is wholly Microsoft's invention in the first place.'" [1 also] [1] http://www.tomshardware.com/news/john-Carmack-DirectX-OpenGL-API-Doom,12372.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/john-Carmack-DirectX-OpenGL...

neilk 15y ago

I don't understand the argument. Joe is saying that the web stack (that is, HTTP/HTML/JS/CSS) deserves to be saved. And that the only way to save it is to have somebody own it. But what makes the web stack special if someone owns it? Why is it worth saving? Let's face it, if you actually bought The Web(tm) from a vendor, you'd ask for your money back.

gojomo 15y ago

The web has already crushed a bunch of 'owned' platforms that had strong-willed, deep-pocketed stewards. A good run for iOS, and a few features where the web lags, doesn't change the immense power of the web commons platform. The things proven-out by adjacent proprietary platforms will be assimilated, in a few years' time — plenty of time for multivendor adoption and mass-market usership. (It won't be standards bodies that lead the way — they never do. At best they can codify consensus after the fact, and lightly shame laggards. Instead a rotating selection of innovators, in different categories, will drive change.)

braindead_in 15y ago

Why can't it be both native and web apps sharing the application space together? Each have their own strengths and one does not necessarily have to dominate over the other. There will always be use cases where a native app makes more sense and vice-verse. There is enough depth and breadth in the applications domain to allow both of them to thrive.

tlianza 15y ago

One thing these discussions seem to be slipping into is "the web" vs. "native" while skipping the fact that "native" is not a thing, it's a collection of (competing!) things... and they all also run web apps. Until one native platform captures more usage than the browser, which is impossible unless platforms start to drop the browser, the web will by definition be dominant if dominance is measured by addressable market.

simonhamp 15y ago

Ultimately, I think there is some truth to what Joe is saying. We have already seen the web stagnate under the reign of IE6 - almost a decade of no real innovation. As web developers, we are limited by what the browsers are capable of. That's not to say we don't desire more... hence why a good proportion of devs and designers are using the very latest technology even though it hasn't been fully ratified by it's standards bodies. People _want_ to innovate on the web. With every single one of the other platforms, the web comes for free - they have a browser and a working HTTP stack. I think the challenge is protecting users. The fact that web is such a widely-used platform means even small changes to the supporting technologies can have vast security repercussions. It's not ownership that's the problem - it's fear. What we need is a browser vendor that's prepared to stick it's neck out, to be daring with the technologies. Also fear of accountability... as soon as you become the leader in the browser wars you become accountable for a huge proportion of the world's web experience. This was why IE stagnated. So as a browser vendor, who do you cater for? The billions who just use your software, or the few-million who want to innovate on it? This is why taking ownership is not an option. I would argue that browser vendors would actually prefer to have an equal proportion of users. If Android and iOS had that sort of reach, they would face the same problem. The difference being that some platforms actually make more money out of a wider reach. This changes the dynamic somewhat - of course the owners of those technologies want to innovate, it's a huge income stream. But if someone took charge of the web, who would get all of the money? Who would pay? So there's little incentive for ownership and in fact the last few decades have proven that there doesn't need to be ownership of the web to make it work. All we need is someone to stick their neck out - just like Apple did with the iPhone.