Computer World Copyright 1998 Computerworld, Inc.
NEWS - PAGE 1; Pg. 76
BROWSER STANDARDS TARGETED
by Carol Sliwa
A group calling itself The Web Standards Project debuted last week, with a charter to influence browser makers to do a better job supporting standards.
        Some 450 Web developers signed on within the first few hours of the launch, according to founding member Glenn Davis, chief technology officer at Project Cool, Inc., a Web-based publisher in Palo Alto, Calif. The two major browser makers, Microsoft Corp. and Netscape Communications Corp., applauded the new group's efforts late last week but issued only "vague mutterings, nothing solid yet" in terms of meeting the group's demands, Davis said.
        "The problem is, with each generation of the browser, the browser manufacturers diverge farther from standards support," Davis said. One of the group's chief complaints is weak support for the Cascading Style Sheets 1 standard, which was designed to let Web developers attach colors and fonts to World Wide Web pages and space text more easily. Neither Netscape's nor Microsoft's 4.0 browsers fully support the standard, even though both shipped after the World Wide Web Consortium finalized the standard in December 1996.
        Both Netscape group product manager Eric Byunn and Microsoft product manager David Wascha said Version 5 of their browsers will better support the standard. Internet Explorer is in beta now; Netscape's 5.0 browser is due by year's end.
        The Web Standards Project also wants upcoming browsers to support Document Object Model 1 and XML 1.0.

       BROWSERS FAIL TO MAINTAIN STANDARDS
By KARLIN LILLINGTON
If you're one of those people who uses one browser at work and another at home, you may have noticed something odd sometimes the same Website will look completely different depending on the browser.
        For example, if you have access to both a 4.0 or higher version of the two main browsers, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, have a look at Microsoft's own site http:/www.microsoft.com. Odd, isn't it? Perhaps your own company Website also comes in two forms.
        Unless your site is very basic, with none of the dynamic add-ons that perk a site up or make it more functional, you can assume one of three things. First, that you have twin Websites, and which one you see depends on what browser you're using. Second, your (lazy) Website developers designed your site using only the tools for one proprietary browser Netscape's or Microsoft's and anyone looking at it with the "wrong" browser is at best, losing some site functionality, or worse, is looking at a jumbled mess.
        The third option, like the first, is another aggravation for Website designers. Visitors to the site get the same experience regardless of the browser, but that's because the Web designers have had to do some fancy technical footwork behind the scenes to get the proprietary technologies built into one browser to also work with its rival.
        According to a new consortium of Web companies set up this week, at least 25 per cent of the cost of building Websites for clients is tangled up in resolving the inherent incompatibilities between the two leading browsers, wasting millions of pounds each year.
        The pressure group, called the Web Standards Project (http:/www.webstandards.org), came out swinging against the two browser giants, complaining that they were adding enhancements to their browsers which did not conform to the standards they themselves supposedly supported and indeed, had helped create. Those standards had been approved by the World Wide Web Consortium (http:/www.w3c.org), the global Web body that is recognised as a key standards creator.
        In other words, the two companies are paying lip-service to the idea of standards, and making sure they have a hand in creating them, but then ignoring them with a cavalier disregard for the people building the Web the developers and designers, and those using it you.
        The compatibility problem is threatening to transform the Web, but only in the most senseless and pig-headed ways. Either businesses end up paying for the incompatibilities through increased Website costs and lowest-common-denominator Websites which avoid using conflicting technologies, or we all lose out by being inexorably steered towards using the same browser (and much if not most technical innovation has come from healthy competition, not monopoly).
        One solution is to create non-proprietary standards. Those are standards which offer technical specifications that ensure products will interlock without compatibility issues and that content (image, music, or text) can be broadcast and delivered without conflicts. That's been the approach of an international organisation called MPeg, the Moving Picture Experts Group (see related story, page 7).
        The other approach is that of W3C: allow companies to create technologies which they can submit for approval as standards. But that approach is farcical if the companies which create the standards not only won't conform to those put forth by their competitors but also ignore those they created themselves.
        The Web may be a young medium but that is no excuse for browser companies to act like spiteful children. Voice your disapproval and add your name to the support list at the Web Standards Project's Website.
Karlin Lillington is at klillington(at)irish-times.ie
Copyright 1998 The Irish Times, August 14, 1998, City Edition; Section: Business This Week 1; Net Results: The Web and Your Business, page 57.

Copyright 1998 Information Access Company, a Thomson Corporation Company
IAC (SM) PROMT (R)
Copyright 1998 Millin Publishing
EDP Weekly's IT Monitor
No. 32, Vol. 39; Pg. 2
IAC-ACC-NO: 50249463
        BROWSER INCOMPATIBILITIES INCREASE SITE COSTS, THREATEN TO FRAGMENTWEB
Browser Inconsistencies Add 25 Percent To Cost Of Building Web Sites
        Resolving incompatibilities among browsers adds at least 25 percent to the cost of building Web sites, according to The Web Standards Project (WSP), a newly-formed international coalition of leading Web developers dedicated to promoting a worldwide standard for Web and browser design.
        Calling on Microsoft, Netscape and others to live up to promises made in July 1997, the WSP (http://www.webstandards.org) is urging browser makers to fully support the standards created by the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) in the upcoming round of browser releases, as well as support emerging standards that are being developed. Otherwise, contends the WSP, millions of dollars will continue to be wasted each year on Web development.
        "The time for proprietary innovation in Web browsers is past," says Glenn Davis, chief technology officer of Project Cool Inc. "It's time for the browsers to start fully supporting W3C core standards -- standards that Microsoft and Netscape helped develop and promised to support."
        Currently, beta versions of both Netscape's Navigator 4.5 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 5.0 are adding more proprietary enhancements without providing complete support for existing standards, WSP members say. Because the 5.0 browsers will likely become a new baseline for desktop browsers due to theirsupport for XML, the WSP believes resolving the current patchwork support for HTML, Cascading Style Sheets, Document Object Model and ECMAScript is crucial.
        "Because Web developers have to build multiple versions or perform time-consuming workarounds to accommodate visitors on different browsers, most shy away from using proprietary features because of the extra costs involved," says George Olsen, design director and Web architect at 2-Lane Media in Los Angeles. "While clients may want to see these features, few of them are willing to pay for having the site built more than once."
        In addition to increasing the cost of Web sites, the lack of common standards is breeding a sense of frustration among developers. "Most of my design ideas are really simple, but executing them consistently across Internet Explorer 3 & 4, as well as Navigator 3 & 4 is anything but," says Jeffrey Zeldman, a New York Web publisher/designer. "I have to engage in laborious workarounds, simply to end up with a very basic design that works."
        This lack of consistent support for sophisticated presentation standards, such as Cascading Style Sheets, has its long-term effects as well, according to the WSP. Developers will focus on simpler solutions rather than concentrate on longevity.
        "In the absence of standards for thesegreat technologies, we tend to create disposable content dismissively instead of sticking to a solid foundation for the long-term," says Martin Diekhoff, web applications developer for the Getty InformationInstitute.
        Adds Todd Fahrner, design technologist for Studio Verso in San Francisco, "Browser makers should try to take the long view, and realize that surviving the 'browser war' won't matter much if the Web itself breaks apart. Supporting the standards might sound like an altruistic goal in a competitive market, but developers and their clients are losing patience with compromised support for baseline standards like CSS1."
        "The current problem will only be further complicatedwith the rise of television-based and PDA-based Web browsers," warnsAnn Navarro, owner of WebGeek Communications, and treasurer for the HTML Writers Guild. Navarro says the WSP is also urging browser makers to participate in and support the efforts of the W3C's recently formed Mobile Access group, which will be developing standards for PDA and cell phone-based Web browsers.

        UPPROP MOT KLIENTKRÅNGEL
Samma HTML-kod ser inte likadan ut i Internet Explorer som i Netscape Navigator. Mot det faktum att de ledande webbklienterna delvis är inkompatibla protesterar nu WSP (Web Standards Project). Skillnaderna mellan webbklienterna är visserligen inte milsvida, men tillräckligt stora för att kosta webbmakarna pengar. Den som vill bjuda på publikdragande finesser tvingas lägga tid och möda på att testa sin kod i flera olika miljöer. Extrakostnaden sägs uppgå till 25 procent av priset för att bygga en webbplats. Nystartade WSP kräver nu att Microsoft och Netscape lever upp till tidigare löften om att till fullo stödja de standarder som W3C (Worldwide Web Consortium) står bakom i kommande programversioner. Annars går stora belopp till spillo helt i onödan.
http://www.webstandards.org/

        AGAINST CLIENT PROBLEMS
HTML code does not look the same in Internet Explorer as in Netscape. Against the fact that the leading webclients are partially incompatible, WSP (Web Standards Project) are now protesting. The differences between the webclients are not huge, but large enough to cost web producers money. The ones who wants to offer crowd-pleasing effects is forced to spend time and work on testing their code in several different environments. The extra cost is said to be 25 percent of the total price of a website. The newly founded WSP is now demanding that Microsoft and Netscape live up to earlier promises of fully supporting the standards that W3C (Worldwide Web Consortium) stand behind in upcoming versions of their software. Otherwise large amounts will be spent unnecessarily.
Translated from the Swedish by Pär Almqvist

        IS YOUR COMPANY A CASUALTY of the browser wars? A group of angry Web developers claims Microsoft Corp. and Netcape Communications Corp. are adding as much as 25% to the cost of the average Web site. The culprit: proprietary quirks in the two browsers that require programmers to spend hours tinkering to ensure a site will function properly regardless of whether it's viewed with Microsoft's or Netscape's browser.

        UPPROP MOT KLIENTKRÅNGEL
Samma HTML-kod ser inte likadan ut i Internet Explorer som i Netscape Navigator. Mot det faktum att de ledande webbklienterna delvis är inkompatibla protesterar nu WSP (Web Standards Project). Skillnaderna mellan webbklienterna är visserligen inte milsvida, men tillräckligt stora för att kosta webbmakarna pengar. Den som vill bjuda på publikdragande finesser tvingas lägga tid och möda på att testa sin kod i flera olika miljöer. Extrakostnaden sägs uppgå till 25 procent av priset för att bygga en webbplats. Nystartade WSP kräver nu att Microsoft och Netscape lever upp till tidigare löften om att till fullo stödja de standarder som W3C (Worldwide Web Consortium) står bakom i kommande programversioner. Annars går stora belopp till spillo helt i onödan.

        Web developers push for browser standard
A group of Web developers is urging the top browser makers to make their software comply with existing Web standards, which should make Web development cheaper and faster. Because the leading browsers behave differently, developers must often build several different versions of a site so that every visitor can use it. ''Web development costs are 25 percent greater than necessary because of all the different work-arounds we've got to build for different browsers,'' said Glenn Davis, a Web developer and member of the coalition.

The development of true cross-browser standards would allow the Informatics Research Center to develop web applications which could confidently be deployed on all browsers. Cross-browser standards would allow every developer to utilize the latest technology with out having to create a plethora of different versions for all of the various browsers available today, thus minimizing development time and costs.

        PROTESTER MOT SKILLNADER MELLAN WEBBLÄSARE
En grupp webbdesigners har grundat en förening för att protestera mot skillnader mellan webbläsarna från Netscape och Microsoft. Skillnaderna gör att, för att nyttja möjligheterna fullt ut så krävs två olika uppsättningar av en webbplats, vilket fördyrar ca 25%. Sammanslutningen vill förmå dessa båda konkurrenter att enas för en standard. Det finns även en supportlista som man kan skriva på.

       Translation:
A group of web designers have founded an association to protest against the differences between the web browsers from Netscape and Microsoft. The differences require two different versions of a website, which makes projects 25% more expensive. The group will try to make these challenging companies agree to one standard. There is also a support list that you can sign.