When I first became involved with The Web Standards Project I was, like most of my peers, either building two completely different sites to support the version 4 behemoths – Internet Explorer and Netscape, or making a decision as to which browser people should use to view the site.

Internet Explorer 6, despite all of the well known issues, was a breath of fresh air. We could use a lot of CSS2, we could lay out our pages using CSS, and many people decided that Internet Explorer was the browser they were going to support. This led to a raft of “only works in Internet Explorer” sites and applications, the reason why we are still stuck with IE6 today.

Ten years later. In many ways we are in the place that we wanted to be, when we were campaigning for web standards adoption by developers and browser manufacturers. Our browsers do support W3C specifications. We don’t have rafts of crazy bugs in standard features or vendor specific implementations of those features that vary wildly. I can build a complex layout and load it up in Internet Explorer 9, the latest Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome and it all look pretty much the same. This is what we were asking for.

It could not be said however, that all browsers are equal in 2012. Some have moved more quickly to implement parts of the CSS3 specification even when they are just at Working Draft status. Browsers have implemented these new features using Vendor Prefixes, enabling them to implement a feature that might change as it goes through the W3C process. Vendor Prefixes to some extent have helped to prevent the situation arising again where we have a standard feature implemented in different ways by different browsers. Thinking back over our history I believe that to be a good thing.

Whether you like Vendor Prefixes or not, we have a problem. Due to the rise in mobile browser usage, and many of those mobile browsers being based on WebKit, many developers have decided to essentially only use the -webkit- prefix, even for properties that have been implemented by other browsers. Today Daniel Glazman, W3C CSS Working Group Co-chairman, wrote a blog post, Call for action: the open web needs you now!. He, and the W3C CSS Working Group is concerned that if this continues, other browser manufacturers will simply start implementing the -webkit prefix.

This approach seems very likely. If other browser manufacturers have implemented these features under their own prefix, yet web developers do not use those prefixes, then it makes their browsers look less capable than those based on WebKit. By simply implementing the -webkit prefix sites will look better in these browsers.

If this happens then we end up with a web once again controlled by one browser manufacturer. Once again we run the risk of having sites built only for one platform, and finding it very hard to get that platform to go away if things move on. Please read the above post. Please think about it every time you have to ensure your site works well in a browser that is over ten years old. Please do your bit to prevent -webkit becoming a de facto standard and hurting the Open Web.

1. Read the original post – Call for action: the open web needs you now!
2. If you have sites that test for WebKit browsers or only implement -webkit prefixes please take some time and update any -webkit-only property to use the other vendor-specific prefixes and non-prefixed versions.
3. Sign this petition & pledge telling browser makers not to implement the -webkit-* vendor prefix and promising to update the sites under your control.
4. Remove -webkit-only testing from repositories on GitHub – Pre-fix the web!

• Remy Sharp: Vendor Prefixes about to go South
• Gilles Vandenoostende: On Vendor Prefixes
• Christian Heilmann: Now vendor prefixes have become a problem, want to help fix it?
• Bruce Lawson: On the Vendor Prefixes Problem
• Aaron Gustafson: This must not happen!
• Eric Meyer: Unfixed

As professional web builders we know that the web is constantly changing and our methods and practices must respond and adapt as well.

There are so many new disciplines web professionals need to be know about, if not specizlized in, that weren’t around ten or even five years ago.

It’s not always easy to keep on the latest and greatest in web and mobile tips, tricks and techniques.

Sometimes it’s downright difficult.

If it’s hard to keep up with the changes as professionals, so it must be even more so for our teachers of the craft.

For the past several years, a group of dedicated and talented volunteers have been working to help fix that.

Our Education Task Force has developed a world-class curriculum – we’re talking about tools for teaching.

Materials such as syllabii, quiz questions, recommended readings, and more aid in creating web professionals that are ready for the job market that so desperately needs young, competent web builders.

With such a strident resource, professors, educators to teach standards-based web design and development in their own classrooms.

Available on our web site, Web Standards Project InterACT Curriculum have found their way into some forward-thinking classrooms all over the world.

And it’s totally free.

In addition, the Education Task Force published a textbook based off the curriculum titled InterACT with Web Standards.

This web standards textbook is a available from Peachpit, which has published classics such as Jeffrey Zeldman and Ethan Marcotte’s Designing with Web Standards and Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag’s The Zen of CSS Design.

Today, I’m happy to announce that the curriculum reaches even more people than ever before.

The InterACT Curriculum developed through Web Standards Educational Task Force has been licensed to W3C.

Through their resources and network, the curriculum will be used to teach companies and organizations, large and super-large, about standards-based education.

And it only seems appropriate that InterACT finds yet another home that is the W3C.

The Educational Task Force’s InterACT was one of the primary catalytics that led to the formation of the Open Web Education Alliance (OWEA) under the W3C.

To continue to expand the curriculum, the Education Task Force needs your help.

You don’t need to be a self-proclaimed web guru or a mobile ninja to help.

We people that specialize in all facets of web and mobile design and development that includes copywriters, content strategists, user experts, project managers, and more.

There’s room for everyone and, frankly, it has been and will continue to be people like yourself reading this message right now that will make world-caliber educational material.

Contribute to a curriculum that gets in the hands of tomorrow’s builders today.

Fill out the contribution form or reach out to EduTF leaders, Glenda Sims and Mark DuBois to ask how you can get more involved.