Where Web Standards Come From
(and how to help shape them)
How people think standards work...
The most brilliant minds, solving the problem
Nope.
Hi.
I work on web standards, and implementations...
"Who is involved in standards?"
"How are standards are made?"
"Where are standards made?"
I'll do one better...
Why is Standards?
A brief meta diversion...
Because it is important.
You leave Philadelphia at 10:25 am.
You travel for two hours.
You arrive in Pittsburgh at 11:15 am.
How?
A fun word problem..
Time travel?
Way simpler answer...
Local time: Literally sun time
The Library of Congress was required to keep track of well over 300 different local times and travelers would need to be mindful of each one during travel.
Number of Standards Bodies on the Planet
0
Before Industrialization...
-
Steam Power
-
Semaphore Communications
-
Rotary engines
-
Telegraph
-
Railroad
-
Telephone
Dramatically new problems and scales
Lack of standardization is a literal
train-wreck.
In 1862 there was a 24 minute difference.
Fun fact: Pittsburgh history!
We didn't even have common words to describe things like "gauge of the track"
Interop on a grand scale can get important relatively fast.
1903: 1500 buildings burned in Great Baltimore Fire
The fire fighting equipment uses over 600 variants of hose size/couplings.
Competition run amok
Ok... Maybe some cooperation is good?
FFWD...
Ok... but how?
- National Standards Bodies
- International Standards Bodies
- Recognized Standards Bodies
- Kinda recognized not exactly standards bodies
- Consortia
- Experts Groups
- Foundations
Today, we have many different things...
They are all the same in some ways, and very different in others
So many variables
- Participation
- Working modes
- Certification Programs?
- Legal Requirements
- Degrees of openness
- Funding?
- ...and more.
The high order bit:
There is no single "how it works"
...And they change.
But why?
The answer is pretty simple.
So... Warning:
Details can change.
(I'll note a few historical examples)
Focus on some specifics...
Where...
Open Standards
Very long life.
The internet: 50
The web: 30
About 90% of Fortune 500 companies
50 years ago are gone or radically changed.
Not going to talk about this one...
Lots of stuff... Notably protocols like HTTP and TCP/IP..
'HTML 2.0'
Not going to talk about this one...
Where JavaScript the language and related efforts are standardized.
Where CSS, accessibility, internationalization, XR, many browser APIs and more are standardized
Where HTML and DOM are standardized.
We'll focus on these, and what they do today...
HTML 3.2, 4.01, CSS, accessibility, internationalization, XR, many browser APIs and more are standardized
Giagianticus Corp
Warez 'R' Us
University of Research
Agency on Beauracracy
Aim:
Bring together
diverse interests to
work on a common
problem
- Consortia - orgs pay for membership.
- Membership means you have an "AC Rep" who is in charge of your org's participation: 1 member, 1 vote.
- Working Groups
- 'chartered'
- work on specifications
- mailing lists / github
- 'regular teleconfs'
- face-to-face meetings
- voluntary and no-guarantees
- "two interoperable implementations"
Charter, Drafts, process, recs
Anyone can participate...
...kinda
Giagianticus Corp
Warez 'R' Us
University of Research
Agency on Beauracracy
Invited expert
Perfect, right?
What is real?
Giagianticus Corp
Warez 'R' Us
Aim:
Bring together
important interests to
work on a common
problem, try to bring
some of the good bits
along, but not avoid
the bad bits
The Decider
WHATWG
All work is open, management is minimal/cheap mostly
Fail
ECMA
... can I help?
Should I?
Maybe?
Why, is a good question...
A note on the economics of standards participation...
by and large, standards are slow.
I just want to contribute to the betterment of the commons...
Contribute tests
Review Proposals, open issues/comment
See also: The economics of standards participation
TC39: Stages
More practical use polyfills, open issues
Write polyfills?
Polyfills?
I have ideas...
https://webwewant.fyi
Implement something?
Fund the implementation of something?
Houdini Task Force
Anyone can be involved...
Kinda.
Giagianticus Corp
Warez 'R' Us
University of Research
Agency on Beauracracy
Priority Management is one of the biggest problems
There is a natural tendency to exclude, not for intentionally evil reasons but because people need to advance according to their priorities in a voluntary process.
Where Web Standards Come From (and how to help shape them)
By Brian Kardell
