...the Scalable Vector Graphics format, Smith said. Another advantage was better browsing with the limited abilities of mobile phones.
However, a big problem with XHTML 2 was that it it not backward-compatible. Not only can it not be used to display existing web pages, but browsers must be expanded with a new engine for handling the XML. Notably, Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the dominant browser by far, cannot handle XHTML on its own.
Another problem was that there was plenty of demand for improvements to HTML, which W3C had declared finished with version 4.01 in 1999.
"People were so focused on XHTML 2 that they were substantially less interested in modifying the application model and introducing new features to HTML that developers were clamoring for," said Arun Ranganathan, standards evangelist for Mozilla, which makes the Firefox browser. "We felt the standards going on at the time… were disconnected from a large majority of developers.
And according to Amy Barzdukas, general manager for Microsoft's IE: "We've never heard a strong request from our developer audience and customers for XHTML 2."Enter WHATWG
One crucial moment came five years ago when Opera and Mozilla representatives showed the W3C an idea called WebForms for improving HTML. "We jointly presented this paper to W3C, which rejected it," Opera's Lawson said.
Mozilla chief technology officer Brendan Eich and Ian Hickson from Opera were displeased with how things went. "The best way to help the web is to incrementally improve existing standards," said Eich, the founder of JavaScript, in a blog post.
In the blogpost, Eich also announced there an Opera and Mozilla plan to take the evolutionary route. They launched an open email list called WHATWG, short for Web HyperText Application Technology Working Group. Apple, with its Safari browser, also added its name to the list.
"It became a de facto standards organisation without the formality of W3C. It's where we went to figure out what the future of the web was," Ranganathan said.
Eventually, the web application direction won over the W3C. "Some things are clearer with hindsight. It is necessary to evolve HTML incrementally," said web founder and W3C director Tim Berners-Lee in 2006.
However, at the time Berners-Lee also maintained the commitment to the "well-formed" and more rigorous XML-based future. "It is important to maintain HTML incrementally, as well as continuing a transition to well-formed world and developing more power in that world," he said.
In practice, the W3C and WHATWG involve many of the same people, which probably...
