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Education for all
In 1998, the W3C decided that they would not continue to evolve HTML. The future, they believed (and so did your
authors) was XML. So HTML was frozen at version 4.01 and a specifi cation was released called XHTML, which was an XML version of HTML requiring XML syntax rules like quoting attributes, closing some tags while self-closing others, and the like. Two fl avours were developed (well, actually three, if you care about HTML Frames, but we hope you don’t because they’re gone from HTML5). There was XHTML Transitional, which was designed to help people move to the gold standard of XHTML Strict.
This was all tickety-boo—it encouraged a generation of developers (or at least the professional-standard developers) to think about valid, well-structured code. However, work then began on a specifi cation called XHTML 2.0, which was a revolutionary change to the language, in the sense that it broke backwardscompatibility in the cause of becoming much more logical and better-designed.
A small group at Opera, however, was not convinced that XML was the future for all web authors. Those individuals began extracurricular work on a proof-of-concept specifi cation that extended HTML forms without breaking backward-compatibility. That spec eventually became Web Forms 2.0, and was subsequently folded into the HTML5 spec. They were quickly joined by individuals from Mozilla and this group, led by Ian “Hixie” Hickson, continued working on the specifi cation privately with Apple “cheering from the sidelines” in a small group that called itself the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, www.whatwg.org). You can see this genesis still
in the copyright notice on the WHATWG version of the spec “© Copyright 2004–2009 Apple Computer, Inc., Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software ASA (note that you are licensed to use, reproduce, and create derivative works).”
Hickson moved from Opera to Google, where he continued to work full-time as editor of HTML5 (then called Web Applications 1.0). In 2006 the W3C decided that they had perhaps been overoptimistic
in expecting the world to move to XML (and, by extension, XHTML 2.0): “It is necessary to evolve HTML incrementally. The attempt to get the world to switch to XML, including quotes around attribute values and slashes in empty tags and namespaces, all at once didn’t work.” said Tim Berners-Lee (http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/166).
The resurrected HTML Working Group voted to use the WHATWG’s Web Applications spec as the basis for the new version of HTML, and thus began a curious process whereby the same spec was developed simultaneously by the W3C (co-chaired by Sam Ruby of IBM and Chris Wilson of Microsoft, and latterly Ruby, Paul Cotton of Microsoft and Maciej Stachowiak of Apple), and the WHATWG, under the continued editorship of Hickson.
The process has been highly unusual in several respects. The fi rst is the extraordinary openness; anyone could join
the WHATWG mailing list and contribute to the spec. Every email was read by Hickson or the core WHATWG team (which included such luminaries as the inventor of JavaScript and Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich, Safari and WebKit Architect David Hyatt, and inventor of CSS and Opera CTO Håkon Wium Lie).