HTML: We Knew It Well (WAS RE: [xml-dev] The Internet's Golden A ge: Rich Clients, Rich Browsers, Rich Portals)

Not unexpectedly, many seem to have HTML in their crosshairs.
This page makes a good reference on that topic.

http://xul.sourceforge.net/events.html

Ignore the politics and count the numbers.  HTML looks like 
Bill Clinton at a Texas cookout.

How this is going to go:

1.  No matter what else MS does, they have to keep supporting HTML.
2.  No matter what MS does, some will object to it (see Marx Brothers).
3.  No matter what anyone does, web browsers will not continue to be 
    the sole focus of web application development.

It is a matter of standardization.  The only standard for rich 
clients is ISO ISMID.  It is friendless.  So much for convictions 
and opportunities to stop confrontations.  This will be like WWI: 
thousands of miles of muddy blood soaked trenches and no progress 
over a cause no one can remember and no one really cared about to 
begin with.  It doesn't have to happen, but so many are so passionate 
about things with so little value, they don't notice that these 
trenches they are carving and these shells left unexploded and 
buried will make the countryside ugly, dangerous and almost 
useless for a thousand years.

Carry on.  Philosophy never stopped a war although it can be 
said to have started a few.

len