CSS Unworking Group

(Before I start, I must say that I have agonized long and hard over whether or not to publish what you can see now.)

As has been widely reported, software developer Opera, has filed an antitrust complaint with the EU to force Microsoft to support open Web standards in Internet Explorer and to carry alternative browsers pre-installed on Windows. What has not yet been discussed is the devastating and destabilizing effect that this will undoubtably have on the development of future CSS.

As I am what the CSS Working Group (of which I am currently an Invited Expert) refers to as an author, roughly translated meaning that I use CSS a practical, everyday tool, I share Opera's frustrations. Along with web designers worldwide, I have been creatively stifled by Microsoft's decision to allow Internet Explorer 6 for Windows to languish in the doldrums for so many years. With their significant market-share, Microsoft should have been at the forefront of technical development and standards support in browsers. That would have fostered an ever increasing focus on what can be possible using CSS. Instead Microsoft allowed their lead to hinder progress and web designers, developers, their clients and their customers have all suffered as a result. I am no Microsoft apologist, I have very strong opinions about their software and their use of their market-share, but I do appreciate the efforts that the developers on the Internet Explorer team have made with Internet Explorer 7 and hopefully beyond.

Opera has continually innovated, particularly in the area of CSS implementation and should be commended for that. Their browser supports many CSS3 properties and this has only helped web designers get to grips with what should be made possible on a wider scale in the future. But let's not forget that Opera is a software development company that earns its living from making software that is deployed across a variety of devices. Their implementation of CSS and other standardized web technologies may come in part from their passion for standards, but it also comes from their need to make a product that they can sell to the likes of Nokia and Nintendo. Let's not kid ourselves, Opera is as much a commercially driven organization as Microsoft.

Whether you believe that Opera is right to pursue their action against Microsoft in the European courts, or justified in taking that action, or you believe that this action is a publicity stunt by which Opera hopes will increase its profile and grant it the status of the web-standards developer's champion is your business. It is also not a topic that I wish to debate here. What I am concerned about is how Opera's action will further destabilize the W3C's CSS Working Group of which both Opera and Microsoft post representatives. I am concerned that this action will irrevocably damage the promise and progress of CSS3. Not for the first time, Opera's action also calls into question whether we, as web designers and developers, can trust the W3C and their corporate participants with the development of our future tools.

As I have explained before, my participation in the W3C's CSS Working Group has been less than I had hoped. However, even my limited exposure to its inner workings has given me a very different perspective on how standards for CSS are set. In the past I had previously, possibly naively, believed that standards for CSS were written through a collaborative, non-partisan process by the CSS Working Group's members and that these specifications were then available for browser makers to implement (or not) as they chose. This is not the case.

I was surprised to learn that one of the reasons why CSS2.1 is only now nearing its candidate recommendation status is because its features are now widely supported by browsers. This pattern of standards specification development may have worked well for establishing set standards across a group of already established technologies, but it is not the way to develop the new, potentially revolutionary tools that designers using CSS will need in the very near future. I therefore came to believe that the W3C must rethink, from the CSS Working Group up, how the development of these new standards is achieved. The CSS Working Group should look at new versions of CSS in no different a way to a software development company such as Adobe perceives the development of a new software product. New specifications must have clearly defined goals, a dedicated team of designers and software engineers and firm delivery schedules.

Browser vendors such as Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla and Opera at the heart of developing our tools of tomorrow will not make CSS3 the quantum leap that we need and deserve it to be. However this is the way that the CSS Working Group has historically operated, with their representatives supposedly leaving their affiliations and personal agendas at the door and keeping the common goal of the advancement of the web in mind.

Opera's decision to take on Microsoft in the European courts, and CSS Working Group member Håkon Wium Lie’s personal backing of it, calls into question whether we can trust browser vendors and their representatives with the development of our future tools. It calls into question whether or not their representatives can, or are allowed by their employers to work together with their competitors in a spirit of cooperation. It calls into question the fundamental basis on which the CSS Working Group has operated up until this point. I suggest that Opera's action now makes the CSS Working Group unworkable and that immediate and sweeping changes are necessary.

Following Opera's action, today I am calling on Bert Bos, chairman of the CSS Working Group, and those higher up within the W3C including Sir Tim Berners Lee, to immediately disband the CSS Working Group in its current form. I am asking for immediate action to be taken on the formulation of a replacement CSS Working Group that will include new members who are not the representatives of browser vendors. Instead the new CSS Working Group should consist of people, including some who already serve on the group, who are committed to seeing the development of CSS3 succeed because that is central to the success of our profession. This new group need not start from scratch, but should instead build uponn the significant advances and hard work of the current CSS Working Group.

I believe that for several different reasons, browser vendors can no longer be trusted with our future tools, nor to work together to develop them on our behalf. I propose that instead of actively participating in the development of new CSS standards as part of the CSS Working Group, that browser vendors instead form a Technical Advisory Group that is attached to the new CSS Working Group. Their role should be to advise on the technical limitations or requirements of the proposals that the new group creates. Along with the formation of this new group, new processes for communication and participation are needed, plus a clear strategy, with dates attached for the delivery of the new standards.

Whether you agree or disagree with the motivations for Opera's action against Microsoft, the effect of their action on the CSS Working Group is catastrophic. I have long believed that web designers and developers should be at the heart of creating their future tools alongside the W3C. I have also suspected that change must occur within the CSS Working Group and the W3C if we are to get the tools that we need and deserve.

That change must occur now, without delay and it must be sweeping and conclusive.