Since the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) was founded in October 1994, its mandate has been
to look after the future interests of the Web. Mostly this has meant a
tireless fight against proprietary code, the source of all those pesky non-interoperable eddies in
the rapid development on the cross-platform river.
As the Web grows -- and keep in mind it's still a toddler -- the
benefits of the W3C's long-range planning are becoming increasingly
apparent. All those discussions about how important it is for Web browsers
to adhere to standards are finally bearing fruit: Recent releases of the
major browsers now support W3C initiatives like the Web Access Initiative
and CSS2.
Getting this far -- from the "just talk" stage to actual implementation
and support -- has taken a mighty long time (well, a long time to us wild
and impatient Web folk). Even with these battles won, however, the war
against Web fragmentation still rages. Only now, the W3C's attention has
turned to non-browser Web devices.
Manufacturers are already making Internet-enabled video game consoles,
televisions and mobile phones. These devices come with their own built-in
modems (themselves in danger of impending obsolescence), which connect to
software inside their chassis. If the authors of this software don't agree
on a standard, we could find ourselves in the very same uncomfortable
place we were with the "browser wars" of the late '90s.
Imagine if each Web-enabled video-game console was able to access only
its maker's video-game console content. Multiply that by all the different
makers of all the different Internet-enabled devices and potential
Internet-enabled devices -- refrigerators, clock radios, humidifiers? -- and
you'll start to understand the boggling scope of the problem.
Getting the browser makers up to standards was one thing, but finding a
way to regulate a huge variety of devices, each made by a number of
manufacturers, is a far more daunting task.
Is the W3C up to it? Can it create a way for Web developers to write
well-formed code that's entirely independent of the Web device on which
it's ultimately rendered? If the W3C's success with the latest browsers is
any indication, it at least has a fighting chance. And it has already made
some headway.
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