HTML5 is the flavor of the month. Steve Jobs thinks it will feed his cat, Google thinks it means whatever they think is good, and the rest of us are waiting to discover what (apart from video, better forms, and interoperable parsing on the web) it actually *is* when it's done. Obviously, there is a lot of interest in the next generation of such an important technology, and a lot of discussion about what it will be, how it works, etc. Where the people go, politics follows close behind. From CSSquirrel to MrLastWeek, from the New York Times to bloggers in Kyrgyzstan, people are also watching the politics. And there is a lot of it. On this panel, the people who have been there take you on a guided tour of the (smoky backroom) discussions and deals that shape HTML5, and looks at what is happening now. Where did HTML5 come from? Who were the players, who are the players, and what do they think? Why is X3D not in HTML5 if MathML is? What happened to accesskey, and why are people unhappy? Why does HTML5 have two licenses, and two specs? This panel *won't* answer your questions about how to include HTML5 in your website. It will explore the thorny questions you want to ask but nobody wants to answer, and we'll maybe have a little fun along the way.
Chaals (whose mum calls him Charles McCathieNevile when he is in trouble) has been involved in making standards at W3C since the days he began holding up CSS 2, late last century. Since then he failed in his chosen career as a barman, a fact he blames on spending 6 years based at MIT and the South of France working for W3C. To make ends meet he has been working as Chief Standards Officer at Opera since 2005, where he gets blamed for anything Opera does badly in standards and tries to take credit for great standards work that other Opera employees make happen. Originally from Australia, he was let out for good behaviour (an admiinistrative oversight) and has since visited a quarter of the world's countries in an effort to learn how the Web might make the world better, and how we should make the Web better. He reads books about anything except the Web, and cooks a lot. He resides in Norway, is at home in Spain, and seemingly pends most of his time somewhere else.
An internationally recognized web accessibility specialist, John has been creating and managing web sites for over 12 years. Prior to coming to Stanford, he successfully ran an independent consulting firm in Ottawa, Canada providing web accessibility guidance to numerous Government of Canada clients, including the Canadian Space Agency, The Supreme Court of Canada, Canada Revenue Agency and others.
He currently runs the Stanford Online Accessibility Program where he offers guidance and solutions on how to achieve on-line accessibility to content producers on campus.
John is also actively involved with the W3C where he currently co-chairs a subcommittee on the accessibility of media elements in HTML5.
Paul is employed by Microsoft Canada and is presently Group Manger of Microsoft's interoperability team that covers HTML and Cloud technologies.
Paul is currently co-chair of the W3C HTML Working Group which is standardizing HTML5. He is also the Chair of the Canadian Advisory Committee on SC38 Cloud Computing.
Paul has previously been elected to the W3C Advisory Board and the W3C Technical Architecture Board. During his 39 year career has been active is several other standards organization including OASIS, WS-I and ISO.
Paul has a M.Math from the University of Waterloo.
