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Steven Champeon
schampeo at hesketh.com

B.K. DeLong
bkdelong at pobox.com

Jeffrey Zeldman
jeffrey at zeldman.com

WEB STANDARDS PROJECT APPLAUDS NETSCAPE 6.0 AS MILESTONE TOWARD A STANDARDS-BASED WEB

The Web Standards Project (WaSP) today applauded Netscape for producing the most standards-compliant browser the Web has yet seen. Based on the open source Mozilla project, Netscape 6 exceeds all previous browsers, including Netscape’s own, in the scope of its support for W3C and other Web standards. The new Netscape browser supports HTML 4, XML 1.0, CSS-1, DOM Level 1, and ECMAScript (the standard successor to Netscape’s JavaScript), as well as key parts of CSS-2.

"Recently, other browsers have delivered solid support for several key Web standards, but none goes as far as Netscape has now gone," said Web Standards Project group leader Jeffrey Zeldman. "When The Web Standards Project was formed, we asked browser makers to support five key Web standards. Netscape is the first to do exactly what we asked."

At the same time, the WaSP cautioned that Netscape’s achievement alone will not make the Web safe for standards. "This can only work if all browser manufacturers fully support the same standards," Zeldman said. "Netscape's achievement is a milestone, but the battle for Web standards is not over."

"It's time for developers and content folks to start using these standards in their own work," said B.K. DeLong of the WaSP steering committee. "Browser makers can't fix sites built with non-standard code. Designers and developers need to stop authoring proprietary code and support Web standards by actually using them in their sites. This will also enable those using non-traditional browsers to have sites worth viewing."

Steve Champeon of the WaSP steering committee added: "We congratulate Netscape on leveraging the power of open source to raise the bar on standards support, showing the world that it can be done. We see this as a cause for celebration; but also for caution."

Champeon pointed out that the new browser is not perfect. "There are some bugs. We hope Netscape can fix them with help from the Mozilla Project, whose open source browser is relatively free of the real-world pressure that drove the release of Netscape 6." The WaSP looks forward to Netscape’s taking the browser to the next level.

The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition of Web developers and users fighting for standards in our browsers. More information is available at www.webstandards.org .