I might have mentioned before, that the CSS Invited Expert Andy Clark had suggested that Opera’s complaint to the EU about Microsoft might make it difficult for Opera and Microsoft to work together, if they were so publicly squabbling over standards, and he called for the CSS working group to be disbanded and reformed with a different structure.

Of course, given that one of the two threads of Opera’s complaint is that Microsoft isn’t following web standards, this is rather undermined anyway by the news that internal builds of IE8 are passing the ACID2 test. However, that still leaves the question of whether or not Microsoft are exploiting a monopoly on operating systems to create a browser monopoly to squabble about…

It’s therefore quite reasonable to ask — as Andy did — whether this would make it difficult for Opera and Microsoft to work together, and ask for them to be able to confirm whether this wouldn’t damage the CSS working group:

I want to see Opera’s Håkon Wium Lie and CSS Working Group representatives from Microsoft and Bert Bos all make public statements to the effect that this issue will not affect the CSS Working Group.Andy Clarke

And today on the CSS working group blog, we did get some statements to that effect.

As far as Microsoft is concerned, I have not received any instruction to change my participation in W3C in any way because of this or any other lawsuits. Personally, I love working with HÃ¥kon and all CSSWG members.Alex Mogilevsky (Microsoft)

You are absolutely correct. I very much enjoy working with Microsoft representatives and would like to continue doing so. I also hope the work will result in better standards support in IEHÃ¥kon Wium Lie (Opera)

Unfortunately, the rather snarky and tetchy tone of the post was inappropriate.

It was entitled signal to noise, and ended with “Please find something else to argue over, thanks.” implying that Andy, and the rest of us who had worried about it, were talking nonsense that wasn’t worth listening to. No. We were expressing a legitimate concern, which has been assuaged to some degree by those statements from Opera, from Microsoft, and from Microsoft’s progress with IE8.

[Update: following my discussion with fantasai in the comments section below, I toned down this post, acknowledging that maybe I was being too harsh on fantasai, and fantasai has also toned down the original post slightly. I believe this hitherto unknown phenomenon in web standards is known as a compromise, and involves such bizarre concepts as "trying to understand the other person's point of view". Unfortunately, I can't see it catching on ]

Unfortunately, some of that progress has for me been undone by fantasai (whom I’ve praised in the past) for taking that sort of snarking, biting tone and seeming not to understand that people would legitimately have concerns.

It’s great that you’ve got HÃ¥kon and Alex to publicly say those things. But that should have happened three days ago, instead of it seemingly only being sparked off after people publicly raise queries about it.

Also, if those working on the CSS group can’t, don’t, or won’t understand that not all of us have a direct line to HÃ¥kon or Alex, we don’t know what they’re like to work with and we don’t know how they are likely to behave in a particular situation, then I would suggest that those members of the CSS group step out from the ivory tower for a while and see what life is like on the outside.

If the CSS group have lost touch with the ability to understand how web developers and designers feel about things to this extent, then I think Andy has a point — the group should be disbanded and/or restructured. Not because Opera and Microsoft can’t get on, but because the CSS working group have lost touch with the people they’re supposed to be developing these standards for.