I would have thought w3.org *was* the "formal" standards body for
HTML/XML etc.
However, their agenda has been hijacked by the marketing giants, like
most of the clever things about the net.
Now it appears w3.org is only a rubber stamp to make the bodies that
sit on it look good, and give weight to their own push for proprietry
standards to be integrated and accepted as the next generation of
whatever standard they want to have in the future.
I would be quite keen to see much more formal standards bodies involved
in this, provided they were not hijacked or lobbied in the same way
by proprietry interests.
In fact, if some kind of guarantee was made of being able to provide
consistent interfaces between browsers and their API (programming interface)
as well as making a commitment to the production of useful content
enhancing features instead of the usual anigif or frames or whatever the latest
feature of the week is, then I think it would be a tremendous idea.
rachel
-- Rachel Polanskis Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia grove@zeta.org.au http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html r.polanskis@nepean.uws.edu.au http://www.nepean.uws.edu.au/ccd/ "Yow! Am I having fun yet?!" - John Howard^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Zippy the Pinhead