The Web Standards Project has called on the public to join its campaign to get Microsoft Corp to support World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards in the next release of Internet Explorer (IE). The dispute between AOL and Microsoft over instant messaging shows how incompatible standards hut the public, said WSP project leader George Olsen. For browsers, there are common standards but Microsoft appears to be noncommittal about finishing them off in Internet Explorer, saying there isn’t public demand for them. The WSP, which represents the web content developers who would dearly like to save time and money by developing content to a single, widely supported standard, wants to fix that by engaging the public in its fight.
The trouble is that Microsoft appears to consider its W3C standards support adequate as soon as it exceeds the support provided by competitive products. In other words, as long as IE is more standards-compliant than Navigator, Microsoft believes its work is done. That logic might be appropriate if either browser were fully standards-compatible, but neither is; so Microsoft can exceed Netscape’s performance without actually making the grade. Implementing most of these standards but not finishing key areas is like building a car but forgetting to install the steering wheel, Olsen explained, technically, it’s almost done, but it’s not usable.
In an open letter to the Redmond software giant, the WSP steering committee asked for 100% support for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Level 1, HTML 4.0, the document object model (DOM) 1.0 and extensible markup language (XML) 1.0 in the next version of IE. The group also pointed out that in spite of all appearances, Netscape browser development is not at a standstill. Less than full support in Internet Explorer would be a bad marketing decision when its largest competitor delivers the goods, the letter warns. Microsoft’s support for these standards has been far superior to Netscape’s, but that will change when Netscape releases Navigator 5.0, which appears headed toward fulfilling its promise of 100% support for these standards, according to independent reports.
