Mozilla, Opera Ridicule Microsoft's 'Native HTML5' Hogwash

Posted 04/17/2011 at 6:32am | by Pulkit Chandna

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The current HTML Working Group charter defines HTML5 as being “a platform-neutral and device-independent design.” Pretty straightforward, right? Well, try telling that to Microsoft. Earlier this week, when it launched IE10 Platform Preview 1, the world's leading software vendor claimed that Internet Explorer is the only browser to deliver a “native HTML5” experience.

Microsoft's ludicrous claim didn't go unnoticed. While rivals Mozilla and Opera were quick to respond, it was the former that stood out with a parodic bug filing on its Bugzilla bug tracking system.

Mike Beltzner, a former Firefox director at Mozilla, Beltzner reported Firefox's lack of native HTML5 support as a bug on Mozilla's  Bugzilla installation, spawning a fairly long thread full of some very witty comments. One poster even suggested that Mozilla should focus on developing a “HTML5 coprocessor” if it hopes to provide a truly native experience.

Some of you are probably wondering what Microsoft really means by native HTML5. Well, nobody really seems to have a definite answer as the software giant hasn't defined the term as yet. This is what Internet Explorer boss Dean Hachamovitch wrote about native HTML5 support in a recent blog post: “The only native experience of the Web and HTML5 today is on Windows 7 with IE9. IE9’s approach to taking advantage of what the operating system offers – from the native graphics stack to jump lists in the shell – maximizes performance, usability, and reliability.”

“The best HTML5 is native to the operating system, so Web sites have the fewest translation layers to pass through. The best HTML5 enables sites to use the same markup – the same HTML, CSS, and script – across browsers. The best HTML5 respects developers’ time and enables same markup by treating site-ready HTML5 differently from unstable technologies.”

Meanwhile, Opera's Haavard Moen dismissed the entire thing as “another nonsensical marketing claim from Microsoft.” He was particularly severe on  Dean Hachamovitch: “In my opinion, Dean Hachamovitch should be ashamed of himself for signing his name to such a shoddy piece of dishonest marketing nonsense. Call me a grumpy old open web fundamentalist, but I'm getting fed up with this.”