Robert O’Callahan - The Open Web Platform in the mobile era

Mozilla is dedicated to ensuring that competition and innovation thrive on the Internet. In the last decade we rescued the Web from a near-monopoly and restored competition to the browser market. Now the standards-based Web platform is evolving rapidly — mostly in a good direction — and is defeating some of its competitors, such as proprietary browser plugins. However, it faces fresh challenges, in particular, single-vendor platforms for mobile devices that are attracting application developers away from the Web platform. In this talk I will describe the work we’re doing to ensure that the standards-based Web wins again — developing new technologies, extending Web standards, and shipping great products on all kinds of devices. I’ll talk about the challenges we face and what people who care about competition and freedom can do to help.

Transcript

1. Robert O'Callahan Mozilla Corporation The Open Web Platform In The Mobile Era
2. Let's make this interactive.
6. The “open Web platform”: true multi-vendor standards.
7. But vendors want to own the platform.
14. Does the Web really compete with native platforms? Yes.
15. Single-vendor platforms address real needs. For example: slick UI, sensors, offline usage, app discovery and monetization, tooling.
16. Good news: Web standards are moving faster than ever.
17. Soon latest versions of all major browsers will support • HTML5 Forms, Drag&Drop, parsing, <video>, History, AppCache • DOM touch events, orientation events, geolocation, File API, Workers • WebSockets, EventSource • CSS hyphenation, columns, 2D and 3D transforms, gradients, transitions and animations, flexbox layout, fonts (WOFF) • Accelerated 2D canvas • WebGL (Not Microsoft, but they'll crack) • JS Typed Arrays
18. Behold demos.
19. A lot more is coming. • JS language improvements (WeakMap, modules) • Ongoing JS performance improvements • IndexedDB • CSS regions, grids, exclusions, Opentype control, element() images • Custom CSS/SVG filters • Fullscreen, MouseLock • SPDY, CSP • MediaStream, WebRTC, PeerConnection • Some kind of audio processing
20. The Web standards platform is not stagnating. We have other problems.
21. “Browser X implements Y, browser Z doesn't” is easy to market. Especially if you produce apps that use Y. This creates bad incentives.
22. Maybe the feature isn't a true multi-vendor standard. Please beware of “open- washing”.
23. Maybe the feature is poorly implemented.
24. Maybe the feature is just bad for the Web.
25. Please be discerning about new features.
26. Less marketable activities are as important as adding new features, e.g. improving specs and fixing bugs to improve interop.
27. Please give us the right incentives by focusing on implementation and spec quality.
28. Not Webkit.
29. Apps that target a particular browser engine are antithetical to the open Web. Please don't do that.
30. if (window.has3d) { elem.setAttribute('style', '-webkit-transform:translate3d(' +x+'px,'+y+'px,'+z+'px);'); }
31. Vendor prefixing has served us well but it can hurt. We need to unprefix features quicker. Please treat prefixed features as experimental.
33. Apps locked into single-vendor distribution channels undermine the open Web. Please don't do that.
37. Facebook should not have a monopoly on Web identity. Mozilla is creating BrowserID. Please use it.
39. A drive for open Web standards is more needed than ever. Even if HTML wins, the open Web could lose. Please be responsible.