Mozilla open source evangelist Chris Blizzard is blasting Google and Apple for not living up to the open source standards of HTML5. Specifically, he took Apple to task for their new “HTML Showcase” site.

“These web standards are open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient,” the site says. “The demos below show how the latest version of Apple s Safari web browser, new Macs, and new Apple mobile devices all support the capabilities of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.”

And yet the site is not compatible with Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. “That s right,” writes Blizzard. “If you re not on Safari, then F*** You. Aside from the incendiary language I ve used to help you understand how it feels the real underlying message here is that if you don t have access to Safari then you must not have access to HTML5. Wait, only Safari supports HTML5 Nope, lots of browsers do. A huge percentage of the world does have access to standards like HTML5.”

“Basically they are saying internally ‘omg, no one thinks we support html5, we need to prove them otherwise! We ll put up tests! Demos! The world will then know and we can go back to being perceived as actually leading the WebKit project which is also made of puppies and rainbows!'” he adds. “So you end up with sites like this. Sites that entirely miss the point of the web, interoperability, standards and html5. The demos that they put up are just filled with stuff that Apple made up, aren t part of HTML5 and are only now getting to the standards process.”

As Blizzard sees it the HTML5 moniker has been thrown around too loosely, which he mostly blames on Google. “The big problem is that html5 has come to mean a lot of things, mostly thanks to Google, said Blizzard. They ve basically been riding that and flogging it and making it their own. (That and [Chrome] performance simple, great marketing messaging. I appreciate it, even if the dishonesty of it makes my blood boil).”

“It s a shame that the main victim here turns out to be Apple, given that the king of these tactics is Google, he adds, But hey, Apple managed to come out with something that was so brash and misleading it deserves a good tear-down.”

Goggle said that the Native Client and the Chrome Store were originally part of HTML5, but eventually they became exclusive to the Chrome browser. Interestingly, with all this criticism Blizzard has for Apple and Google missing the point with HTML5, he says that Microsoft is getting it right.

“The most important aspect of HTML5 isn t the new stuff like video and canvas (which Safari and Firefox have both been shipping for years). It s actually the honest-to-god promise of interoperability,” writes Blizzard. “Even stodgy old Microsoft, who has been doing their best to hold back the web for nearly a decade, understands this and you ll see it throughout their marketing for IE9. (Their marketing phrase is ‘same markup’ watch for it and you ll see it everywhere in their messaging). The idea that the same markup, even with mistakes, will be rendered exactly the same. HTML5 represents the chance for browsers to work together and find common ground.”

Source: The Register