Buzz Archives: Emerging Technology
Beyond the Blue Beanie?
You put on your blue beanie every year. But you can make a difference throughout the year. For several years, web workers passionate about web standards have donned blue beanies for one day to bring attention to the importance of using web standards, keeping the web open, and continually moving it ...
By Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis | November 30th, 2011
- HTML5 logo: W3C takes a step in the right direction
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With a little back-pedalling, the W3C has moved away from their blanket characterization of modern web tech as “HTML5”.
By Chris Mills | January 28th, 2011
- HTML5 logo: be proud, but don’t muddy the waters!
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In which we ask that the W3C to come up with a new monicker for the umbrella of modern web technologies.
By Chris Mills | January 18th, 2011
- Interview with Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML 5 specification.
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You've heard it's coming in 2012. Or maybe 2022. It's certainly not ready yet, but some parts are already in browsers now so for the standards-savvy developers, the future is worth investigating today. Ian "Hixie" Hickson, editor of the HTML 5 specification, hopes that the spec will go to ...
By Bruce Lawson | May 13th, 2009
- Help tidy HTML 5 (and get your name in lights)
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The editor of the HTML 5 spec, Ian Hickson, calls for input on issues in the spec—typos, contradictions, or simply confusing bits. If everything goes according to plan, all issues will get a response from the editor before October. He says The plan is to see whether we can shake down the ...
By Bruce Lawson | April 2nd, 2009
- WAI ARIA Last Call, and Safari 4
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The W3C’s WAI ARIA moves to Last Call Working Draft; appropriately, the Safari 4 Beta is out, featuring improved ARIA support.
By Derek Featherstone | February 24th, 2009
- The good, the bad, and the ugly – iPhone edition
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The iPhone has had a tremendous impact on the web, eliciting impassioned testimony from supporters and detractors alike. What does it mean for the web standards? What about the rest of the mobile web? And (how) should we design for it?
By Aaron Gustafson | August 22nd, 2007
- hAccessibility
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By Bruce Lawson and James Craig. (German translation) Microformats are a great idea. They allow the embedding of parsable, semantic data (like contact information and event details) into regular web pages. With the right plug-in, that information can be saved directly to your calendar program or address book. Like Microformats, a ...
By James Craig | April 27th, 2007
- Apollo alphas released
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Today Adobe released the first alpha of their new cross-operating system runtime, codenamed Apollo.
By Aaron Gustafson | March 19th, 2007
- Which is better for the web: single vendor homogeneity, or OSS/Web 2.0-style innovation?
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Brendan Eich, the principal creator of JavaScript and one of the leading developers for the Mozilla project, follows up his SXSW presentation, which illustrates parallels between historical examples of user-community-driven innovation and the current state of affairs in the web useragent space. (Say that fast ten times.) In today’s post ...
By Ben Henick | March 12th, 2007
- Notable web experts who are [x]: Women and non-Caucasians
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[To those who are advocates of politically correct language, I apologize in advance for the blunt way in which I frame the role of race in this post.] Between Jason Kottke and WaSP founder Jeffrey Zeldman, the buzz is building yet again on the subject of conference panel composition… specifically, the ...
By Ben Henick | February 25th, 2007
- Flash, JavaScript, UX, standards, apologia, apologies, and one man’s opinions
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The recent discussion of plug-in implementation, here and elsewhere, points to broader issues that affect everyone who is invested in web standards adoption.
By Ben Henick | August 18th, 2006
- JavaScript beyond the browser
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It's always interesting to see Web Standards used in a setting outside the browser. Did you know, for instance, that the chat client Adium can be skinned using CSS? JavaScript is showing up in more and more desktop apps. Apple's Dashboard and Yahoo's widgets (formerly Konfabulator) are the obvious examples. But ...
By Jeremy Keith | June 23rd, 2006
- Got Browser Woes? Think Again.
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If you've been losing hair due to browser incompatibilities on the desktop, blame your remaining gray hairs on IE 6.0, Safari or Opera bugs and implementation problems, and have felt the calcium leeching from your tired bones while trying to make standards-based sites compatible in older browsers, you may wish ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | September 24th, 2005
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
Our Work Here is Done
By Aaron Gustafson | March 1st, 2013
Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality.
When The Web Standards Project (WaSP) formed in 1998, the web was the battleground in an ever-escalating war between two browser makers—Netscape and Microsoft—who were each taking turns “advancing” HTML to the point of collapse. You see, in an effort to one-up each other, the two browsers introduced new elements and new ways of manipulating web documents; this escalated to the point where their respective 4.0 versions were largely incompatible.
Realizing that this fragmentation would inevitably drive up the cost of building websites and ran the risk of denying users access to content and services they needed, Glenn Davis, George Olsen, and Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded WaSP and rallied an amazing group of web designers and developers to help them push back. The WaSP’s primary goal was getting browser makers to support the standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
In 2001, with the browser wars largely over, WaSP began to shift its focus. While some members continued to work with browser vendors on improving their standards support, others began working closely with software makers like Macromedia to improve the quality of code being authored in tools such as Dreamweaver. And others began the hard slog of educating web designers and developers about the importance of using web standards, culminating in the creation of WaSP InterAct, a web curriculum framework which is now overseen by the W3C.
Thanks to the hard work of countless WaSP members and supporters (like you), Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the web as an open, accessible, and universal community is largely the reality. While there is still work to be done, the sting of the WaSP is no longer necessary. And so it is time for us to close down The Web Standards Project.
Many (if not all) of us are continuing to work in the world of web standards, but our work is now largely outside the umbrella of WaSP. If you are interested in continuing to work on web standards-related projects along with us, we humbly suggest you follow these projects:
- A List Apart – The magazine “for people who make websites” is run by WaSP founder Jeffrey Zeldman and is a consistent source of forward-thinking articles and tutorials.
- HTML5 Doctor – A solid resource and discussion forum on all things HTML5, brought to you by Bruce Lawson and his team.
- W3C Community Groups – If you have a passion for a specific web technology, you can help make it better by participating in one (or more) community groups. In particular, you might be interested in one of these: Core Mobile Web Platform, Responsive Images, Web Education, and Web Media Text Tracks.
- WebPlatform.org – A fantastic web standards resource, providing up-to-date documentation, Q&As, tutorials & more. Chris Mills, Doug Schepers, and a number of other standards advocates are involved in this project.
- Web Standards Sherpa – An educational resource founded by WaSP which continues to operate under the leadership of Chris Casciano, Virginia DeBolt, Aaron Gustafson, and Emily Lewis.
- Web Standards + Small Business – An outreach project started by WaSP that educates small businesses about why they should care about web standards. This project is overseen by Aaron Gustafson.
The job’s not over, but instead of being the work of a small activist group, it’s a job for tens of thousands of developers who care about ensuring that the web remains a free, open, interoperable, and accessible competitor to native apps and closed eco-systems. It’s your job now, and we look forward to working with you, and wish you much success.
Nota bene: In the near future, we will be making a permanent, static archive of webstandards.org and some of our other resources like WaSP Interact to preserve them as a resource and to provide a record of our 15-year mission to improve the web.
Bruce Lawson and Steph Troeth contributed to this post.
Filed in WaSP Announcement | Comments (89)
More Buzz articles
| Title | Author |
|---|---|
| Call for action on Vendor Prefixes | Rachel Andrew |
| An End to Aging IE Installs | Aaron Gustafson |
| Beyond the Blue Beanie? | Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis |
| The Sherpas are Here | Aaron Gustafson |