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by ocdtrekkie 305 days ago
> A standard that's not implemented isn't worth anything

I agree, but this is not about that.

XSLT is implemented. Websites use it. I would argue the barrier to remove it should be incredibly high, not "we don't want to financially support the dude who maintains the library". Web standards should be close to permanent, which is why we should not add stupid ones left and right.

The problem I have in particular with how Google uses it's incredible clout to mismanage the web is it actively chips away at the web's stability. The goofiness the CA/B is up to is similar: Over 80% of organizations have outages every year due to certificate issues, and some absolutely clueless folks think 47 day certificate lifetimes is a good decision. The web in 2025 is incredibly fragile, and all signs lead to Google continuing to try to make it more fragile. You could pull in dozens of examples of centralizing forces that ensure one engineer pushing a bad configuration at one company takes down 40% of the web.

The Web is not Android. Apps on it should not break because you didn't submit a new version which updates to the latest platform framework within the last six months. Something on the web should, ideally, continue to work in perpetuity, unless acted on by an outside force (most likely by the site owner failing to continue paying the bill).

XSLT exists, it's supported by every major browser right now, and it should be nearly illegal to remove it.

1 comments

The barrier is incredibly high. I'd be pretty surprised if this process takes less than five years because the bar is so high.

Also you keep saying "Google" and ignoring that all the vendors are tentatively in support of this. What if Olli had opened the issue? He raised it at WHATNOT.