Standards or not ?

[Andreas Pour]

Hi,

Just a short point about standards:  you use the term a lot but do not define
it.  What you seem to mean by "standard" is "the draft specification developed
by w3c.org", then you are using:

  * a completely undemocratic organization
  * an organization which seriously considered making standards subject to an
individual's monopoly (i.e., requiring royalty payments), with these individuals
having great influence over what is a "standard" or not (i.e. a huge conflict of
interest, not to mention likely anti-trust violations and other criminal
behavior)
  * a specification which is nowhere implemented so if you create s
standards-compliant webpage, surprise, it is very much possible that *nobody*
can use it

If that is your def'n of "standard", then I pass on standards, thank you very
much.

Ciao,

Dre


Christoph Cullmann wrote:
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Hi,
> there were some mails about the question why the page is broken in Netscape
> 4.x and Konqueror 3.0.x (is it really broken there ? don't have it I must
> say, but my friends from university got no problems with their konqui 3.0.x
> from suse to view the page).
> 
> The possible reason is: We use CSS and valid XHTML.
> 
> What should we do ? Try to work around each buggy browser or provide a clean
> and validating page ? The Netscape 4 problems may be addressed in the next
> code review by Sebastian, but we won't introduce code that make Netscape work
> and break the validation. You can't get a valid page with good code, which
> approves for the accessibility stuff and all that AND a page that can handle
> each and every old broken browser.
> 
> I don't like the Netscape 4 breakage, too, as I have to use that browser from
> university most time (now they have there mozilla too, fine ;), but that
> can't be the reason to break the standard.
> 
> That I mentioned in my mails that it works with konqui out of CVS does not
> mean that we does any workaround for that konqui version in the html or CSS
> code, it shows only that konqui in CVS can handle valid CSS quiet well.
> 
> Perhaps I should state clear that our goal is not to have a konqui CVS
> compatible page, no , we want to get a page that is viewable in the normal
> used browsers today: mozilla, IE, konqui 3.x, opera, etc. and be
> accessivbility guidelines conform, We want to provide some basic support for
> older ones like ns 4, too, but we don't want to introduce any hacks for some
> specific browser that breaks the standard conformance.
> 
> The whole webteam wanted XHTML 1.0 conformance (if strict or transitional is
> perhaps a matter of taste) and the use of CSS for layout instead of the old
> dirty table misusage.
> 
> cu
> Christoph