Dean,
I don't think it's beyond the scope of the W3C. We're constantly looking
at technologies like XUL. Do people see the need for standardisation
in this area?
Sure.
I think the real benefit of standardisation and standards bodies is not necessarily the standards they develop (in a sense, it's not even necessary, and arguably not even advisable they develop those standards, at least not from top to bottom) but that by anointing technology it becomes a common good. The alternative is "industry standards" that is winner takes all proprietary technologies, which are the property and strategic asset of their creator.
XUL/XAML is a very good example of this. XUL was developed at Mozilla, whose implementation was a great proof of concept. It's a shame that early on in its development Mozilla didn't take it to WC and say, look here is this really cool technology that works, would you guys like to work with us to standardize this?
Or maybe they did and I don't know about it.
Unfortunately now we have two competing technologies that are similar, leading to years if not decades in the delay of the adoption of XUL like solutions.
Just as an aside why
<circle> and not <solid class="whatever">
.whatever {shape: circle}?
j
John Allsopp
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