Browser developers are going to innovate new features. A standards body doesn't drive innovation. Innovation is not a top-down process. A standards body exists to ensure some level of interoperability between browsers.
What Prefixgate shows is that a W3C standard is not a rigid set of laws like the 10 commandments. Rather a W3C standard is like a peace treaty - all adherents agree to respect certain protocols and behave in certain ways, buy are free to pass whatever laws they want within their own boundaries. Assuming that these proprietary laws do not conflict with existing treaty stipulations.
Peace treaties give us access to the best of both worlds: vendors are free to innovate as they see fit, yet they still commit themselves to some level of interoperability. Innovations influence the standard and the standard ensures that all vendors adopt the best innovations at some point.
I don't see why it can't be. For example, going back 10 years the W3C could have said we're standardising a series of layout definition attributes (or multiple backgrounds, or colour fades, or bordering styles, or animation modes or whatever) and then waited for those to be implemented by the browsers. I don't see why the standards bodies can't anticipate a need that hasn't yet been coded for and implement a preliminary standard definition for browser writers to use.
It probably wouldn't work in practice because it appears to rely on the standards body moving faster than the browser makers which is a laughable suggestion as things stand now.
As I, probably shortsightedly, see things now it's the javascript (jquery, mootools, etc.) writers who're best placed to speak to the next iteration of web standards as they are actively filling the holes that are missing in the current iteration of HTML+CSS (and associate tech).
> For example, going back 10 years the W3C could have said we're standardising a series of layout definition attributes
So 10 years ago, before the iPhone and the iPad and the entire mobile web? You really expect that standards body 10 years ago would have anticipated the need for multi-touch events, for example?
I didn't say that all innovation is exclusively top-down. I just said that I couldn't see why it couldn't happen. For example when a client gives you a design brief for a system that's a limited type of top-down innovation.
W3C do appear to create some standards before there is a working implementation too.
don't see why it can't be. For example, going back 10 years the W3C could have said we're standardising a series of layout definition attributes (or multiple backgrounds, or colour fades, or bordering styles, or animation modes or whatever) and then waited for those to be implemented by the browsers. I don't see why the standards bodies can't anticipate a need that hasn't yet been coded for and implement a preliminary standard definition for browser writers to use.
Well, people who have worked with standards bodies know why it can't be. Because of the natures of the processes involved there and the interests that have to be balanced.
The fact that something is at all possible (= no laws in the universe prevent it from being so) don't mean it has a high enough probability. Yeah, a committee could work faster and flexibly. Experience has shown us that historically, they never do.
What Prefixgate shows is that a W3C standard is not a rigid set of laws like the 10 commandments. Rather a W3C standard is like a peace treaty - all adherents agree to respect certain protocols and behave in certain ways, buy are free to pass whatever laws they want within their own boundaries. Assuming that these proprietary laws do not conflict with existing treaty stipulations.
Peace treaties give us access to the best of both worlds: vendors are free to innovate as they see fit, yet they still commit themselves to some level of interoperability. Innovations influence the standard and the standard ensures that all vendors adopt the best innovations at some point.
The comparisons between IE of old and Webkit are incorrect. Microsoft has a history of implementing standards incorrectly (http://www.quirksmode.org/css/quirksmode.html) and bullying standards bodies (http://techrights.org/2011/09/06/michel-levy-comes-out-swing...). When it comes to standards Microsoft does not act in good faith.