Simon Willison’s Weblog

Microsoft was slowing development of new versions of Internet Explorer in the hope that Web-based applications would not be able to compete with Windows applications, and Windows applications would keep people locked in to the Windows operating system. Thus XHTML2 was developed with no expectation that the leading Web browser would ever implement it.

— David Baron

# 8th July 2009, 8:30 pm / david-baron, xhtml, xhtml2, microsoft, ie, web-standards

Turns out, a lot of people are saddened by the loss of a spec they don’t understand, and if they did, would not bother using.

— Assaf Arkin

# 6th July 2009, 9:02 pm / web-standards, assaf-arkin, html5, xhtml, xhtml2

Yes, it'd be nice if everyone kept up to date on the progress of the various W3C working groups. They don't. There are a lot of people who asked what professional markup looked like and were told (right or wrong) that XHTML was the future. So they went ahead and learned XHTML, built their websites and chose watching a DVD or spending time with their kids over watching Mark Pilgrim and Sam Ruby do battle over Postel's Law. Now all of a sudden they're told XHTML is dead. Some wailing and gnashing of teeth is to be expected. What's needed is less "boy aren't I smarter than them" snideness, and more Hey, here's what's up.

— Alan Storm

# 4th July 2009, 12:51 pm / xhtml, html5, mark-pilgrim, sam-ruby, postelslaw, xhtml2, web-standards, w3c, alan-storm

We declined to participate in the XHTML2 Working Group because we think XHTML2 is not an appropriate technology for the web.

— Maciej Stachowiak, Apple

# 12th April 2007, 3:08 pm / apple, xhtml2, maciejstachowiak