wild 1995

Chapter 113 Standards
"Is he crazy?"

When Jim Clark, the real leader of Netscape, heard that Dino was going to invest in Netscape in reverse, his reaction was exactly the same as that of Mark Anderson, because in his perception, mainland China is similar to Africa, both poor and backward places , It is impossible for the common people to have billionaires.

"Mark, is he the son of a high-ranking official, or the spokesperson of a consortium?"

"I don't know, he claims to be a financial genius, and he made a lot of money buying and selling yen in Hong Kong with extremely high leverage."

"Clumsy lie!"

Anderson sat at his desk in a hotel suite, looking at the beta version of Athlon code on his laptop, and said into the speakerphone: "Jim, as long as he can send the money legally to the United States, why should he care where it comes from?" What we should really focus on is Athlon, which Dee wants to trade for 20% of Netscape shares.”

"Athlon's market share is less than 9%, which is only one-eighth of Netscape. Why should we exchange for 20% of the shares?"

"Jim, that's just the present, not the future. Do you know how crazy Dee is? He can write tens of thousands of lines of code every night and develop the brand new Athlon 2.0 at rocket speed. If we don't act quickly, wait for the speed After Dragon 2.0 is released, it won’t take long for many Athlon-based browsers to appear in the world, and these browsers are all competitors of Netscape.”

After Anderson introduced Di Ye's behavior in the last two days, he added: "Microsoft's Reardon has been in contact with Di. If we let them reach a cooperation, we will be very passive."

Since Microsoft went public in 1986, relying on its strong financial strength and the dominant position of the operating system, it has conquered cities everywhere and brought down a large group of competitors. It's been a dark cloud hanging over Clark and Anderson.

"If we agree to his shareholding, will Athlon close the source?"

"No, Athlon continues to remain open source, but all new technologies will be shared with Netscape in advance, and focus on the browser itself, and no longer develop additional functions that compete with Netscape, such as mail systems, news subscriptions, etc. In the future, we can not only greatly reduce costs, but also charge for value-added services, which is very helpful for the IPO.”

Anderson barely had half of his mind on Netscape as a career, while Clark purely regarded Netscape as a tool for wealth. He was an old-fashioned businessman, and he had always been worried about the browser's inability to charge fees. Heartbroken, after thinking for a while, he said, "I need to discuss with Barksdale and the board of directors."

"Hurry up, don't let Rearden take the lead."

Reardon really wanted to seize the opportunity, but it was a pity that Microsoft's internal hierarchy was strict, and it was far less flexible than Netscape. He had just taken over, and he had neither the right to acquire Athlon nor the authority to communicate directly with Bill Gates. The e-mail made a very high evaluation of Di Ye, and strongly suggested that the headquarters take action to recruit him, but no reply has been received.

When Anderson had a conference call with Clark in the hotel, Di Ye was attending an internal meeting of W3C at the Darmstadt University of Technology. The topic was HTML standards, but instead of setting standards, it was grabbing the power to set standards.

After Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989, he did not set standards for the HTML language for the first time. It was not until June 1993 that he and Dan Connery wrote the HTML 6 draft and submitted it to the Internet Engineering Task Force ( IETF), although the IETF released it, it did not promote it, so it failed to become a standard.

At the beginning of 1994, IETF created a working group and began to formulate the HTML 2.0 standard. Unfortunately, the efficiency was very low, and the standard was not produced after more than a year of busy work.

In October 1994, in order to solve the problem of web compatibility, Albert Weiza and Tim Berners-Lee co-founded W10C, and wanted to take back the standard-setting rights of the HTML language from the IETF, but the progress was not smooth , The two sides have been back and forth for more than half a year, and they are still in a stalemate.

Therefore, the current situation of W3C is very embarrassing. It has a great reputation and no power in hand. It is just an empty shelf. Plan, intends to develop a browser called Arena, as an experimental platform to directly formulate the HTML 1995 standard.

Now with the advent of Athlon, there is no need for research and development of the Arena browser. Berners-Lee is going to start the formulation of the HTML 3.0 standard ahead of schedule, so this internal meeting is held.

"It's not a good idea, two standards appearing at the same time, it will split the World Wide Web."

"The efficiency of the IETF is too low. Tens of thousands of new web pages are created every day. If standards cannot be formulated as soon as possible, compatibility issues will become more complicated."

"Not only is it inefficient, they want to add mathematical formulas to the HTML language, which is simply heresy..."

Di Ye had never heard of this plan to seize power before traveling. After eating melons for a while, he summoned Xiaohonghua to check and found that the HTML standard was indeed quite strange. After 1995 was released in November 11, he jumped directly to 2.0. 1997 released in January 1, the intermediate version number does not exist, and the release organization has changed from IETF to W3.2C.

"It seems that this power grab plan was successful, but it took a long time. From 1995 to 1997, it wasted two years."

Di Ye adhered to the strategy of eating one bite at a time and taking the road step by step. He originally planned to only promote CSS at this World Wide Web Conference and not get involved in other topics. He would intervene in the formulation of HTML standards at the next conference. Work.

But now he has changed his mind, thinking that this plan to seize power is a godsend opportunity, and he can participate in it. First, he supports W3C to seize the right to formulate HTML standards from the IETF, and then engages in a second seizure of power, snatching it from Berners-Lee. Dominance in formulating standards - Berners-Lee will make major mistakes in the development of HTML in the future, causing web technology to take many detours, which must be prevented in advance.

Since the Athlon browser is the default experimental platform for the HTML 3.0 standard, Di Ye does not need to engage in conspiracy and tricks. He can join the power-seizing plan at any time as long as he makes a statement. Therefore, according to his usual habits, he did not jump out immediately, but stayed put. Observe the reactions of others and gather the necessary information.

This internal meeting lasted for about 2 hours, and the result did not reach a unified opinion. Some people insisted that there should be no two standards, and some people had other ideas about the HTML standard itself. Said it ended without a disease.

According to Di Ye's observation, the biggest reason for this situation is Albert Weiza, who is a peacemaker and has a close relationship with the IETF. He believes that the right to formulate standards can be transferred through negotiation, and there is no need to go to war.

Weiza is the initiator of W3C. He has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for many years. He is highly respected and influential, and his influence is not inferior to that of Berners-Lee. Tick's ambiguous attitude and neutrality left the members at a loss.

"It's no wonder that the W3C's plan to seize power has been tossing for so long. It turns out that it can only be advanced after Weiza retires next year."

W3C is a private non-profit academic institution in name, but it is actually supported by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the European Commission (European Commission). Weiza is the spokesperson of the United States, and Berners-Lee is the representative of Europe The spokesperson, Di Ye, a Chinese, hastily participated in it, and it was thankless, so he simply kept a low profile and acted as a little transparent for the time being.

Compared with the HTML language, CSS has no historical burden and no disputes between Europe and the United States. As long as it is promoted, it means that W3C has the right to speak and is no longer an empty shelf. Therefore, all members are full of expectations for this. The finale on April 4 At the meeting, after Di Ye finished his report, when Berners-Lee announced the establishment of the CSS working group, the audience stood up and applauded, and the scene was quite lively.

Although W3C has not yet formulated a standard, it has clearly arranged the process. There are 7 steps in total. The first step is to submit suggestions, the second step is to record discussions, the third step is to establish a working group, the fourth step is to release a working draft, and the fourth step The fifth step is to release candidate standards, the sixth step is to propose recommended standards, and the seventh step is to determine recommended standards.

When Di Ye sent an email to Berners-Lee, he submitted a proposal by the way. The discussion in the past few days was the second step. Now the working group has been established, which means that CSS has officially entered the standard formulation stage.

"Di, congratulations on becoming the first head of the CSS Working Group."

"Karen, this is a very difficult job. I still need your help in the future. Continue to support me."

"Hey! Di, you are an amazing programmer. It has refreshed my understanding of the Chinese people. I always thought that you could only play abacus."

"Mr. Hopgood, you should travel to China once, and you will refresh a lot of knowledge by then."

At noon on April 4th, the third World Wide Web Conference ended successfully. After attending a buffet in a country castle-style hotel, Di Ye left Darmstadt in a rented car and went to Frankfurt to meet his two girls. Meet up and get ready for a few days of cuddling holiday living.

(End of this chapter)