BBC worried HTML5 "sailing off course"
By Nicole Kobie
Posted on 13 Aug 2010 at 15:07
The BBC is worried that HTML5 may be "sailing off course", as different companies push the standard toward proprietary implementations rather than keep it open.
HTML5 is the next generation of web development standard, which many web companies hope can rival Adobe's Flash by delivering video and other content without the need of a third-party plugin.
Pushing the public broadcasters own focus on open standards, Erik Huggers, the BBC's director of future media and technology, warned that the standard was "starting to sail off course".
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Everything you need to know about HTML5"Not too long ago, some browser vendors were showcasing proprietary HTML5 implementations; which in my view threaten to undermine the fundamental promise," he said in a blog post, adding Microsoft had made "grand overtures" toward HTML5, but the world would need to wait until IE9 arrives to judge.
Microsoft has included support for HTML5 audio and video tags in its platform previews of Internet Explorer 9, while Apple raised the ire of its rivals by creating an HTML5 showcase page that only worked in its own Safari browser.
He called for standards bodies and browser makers to "continue fervently on the path you began", and not to forget they are "representing the future of the web".
"The tension between individual motivation and collective consensus has brought an end to many noble causes in the past, and here, the pace of progress appears to be slowing on bringing HTML5 to a ratified state," Huggers warned.
"History suggests that multiple competing proprietary standards lead to a winner-takes-all scenario, with one proprietary standard at the top of the stack, which is not where most of us want to be."
Huggers stressed that HTML5 should not just be seen as a clever way to deliver video, as the standard can offer so much more.
"As HTML5 promises to allow us to create new online products with the confidence they will work across the web, the savings in our development and operating costs mean we can spend less on reversioning for different browsers and focus on product development," he said.
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"starting to sail of course"
I think you mean, "starting to sail OFF course"
By zCraigz on 13 Aug 2010 
I must admit that I'm not too sure where he's getting his panic from. Other than the browsers not supporting the same video codec, everything else seems to be going ok.
Huggers stressing that "HTML5 should not just be seen as a clever way to deliver video" seems odd, as who's saying that and that only?
By IanDevlin on 13 Aug 2010
I can see where he's coming from, although I'm greatly surprised the BBC is criticising the business model of one of its favoured partners, Microsoft. MS have been famous for years for sitting on committees developing new technologies, then once they have had their say, and maybe launched a few wild goose chases, they go off on a tangent of proprietary interest that favours their OS and other software. Even now IE is not fully W3C compliant.
By SwissMac on 14 Aug 2010
Apple:
The only reason the Apple showcases only run on Safari, is that they check the browser header information and refuse to run on rivals, probably for fear of the code not running properly on browsers which haven't implemented the same features from HTML5 yet, as Apple have (it works the other way as well, no browser supports all of the features of HTML5/CSS3.
It seems like a cheap trick and for the layman, it looks like they are implementing their own version of the standard, whereas they are probably only restricting it, so that it will look "perfect", because they know the visitor's browser will display it perfectly...
If they just put up a warning, instead, which said that the user's browser might not fully support the HTML5 features used on the page, and let the user take a risk, it would show where the other browsers are lagging behind, but it would also ruin the "perfection" of the showcase of the new technology... :-S
By big_D on 14 Aug 2010
Video formats...
I forgot to say, for the Audio and Video formats used in the relevant new tags in HTML5, it would be a lot better, if they agreed on a single standard, or that every codec supported by the HTML5 spec must be included in all the browsers, for them to label themselves HTML5 compliant...
The problem is, whilst H.264 is a ratified standard and has a guarantee of non-prosecution, it costs money, a pitance per year, even for Mozilla, but it isn't open source, which means that the codec would need to be distributed under a different licence.
On the other side, Ogg and VP8 are open source, but neither of the project groups have done the due dilligence, to guarantee that either codec is totally free from patent infringement - and given that the VP8 codec comes from a branch different branch of the same base as H.264, it is very likely that there are some patent infringements... Until the Ogg group and Google can indemnify implementors of their codecs, they are a non-starter for many commercial ventures.
By big_D on 14 Aug 2010
A vison of HTML 5 Hell!
Remember -with HTML 5, you won't be able to use Flasblock!
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20100811
By milliganp on 16 Aug 2010
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