Re: Weird way round?
The annoying thing about standards is that they're written by humans. That means that at some level there is ambiguity. If different vendors produce software to different interpretations of the standards, but both 'correct', that's not entirely their fault.
Working together to reach a common understanding of how to interpret the standard (ie resolve the ambiguity) is A Good Thing.
Then there are the extensions which are useful but bleeding-edge, which they want to try out before codifying a standard for. Work out the bugs, document it, then get others to adopt it. It might not be the ideal workflow, but I can't see how you can get around that without stifling innovation.
As someone who's been building websites for 20+ years, I can tell you that things are a hell of a lot better now than they ever were before!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
