Chris Mills at the Web Standards project posted up an open letter to the W3C about the new “HTML5 logo“, which I commented on, but it seems comments are off. So here’s what I wrote:
Good points, and I certainly agree with not using HTML5 as the umbrella term.
However, I’m not sure Jeremy’s point that we didn’t need a catch-all term for “HTML4.01 plus JavaScript” is going to help. (We did have DHTML as an umbrella term. Ok, that is a tarnished example, but my point is that people still remember the acronym.).
Presumably the aim of the logo is to let (non-developers) know that a site is built with a certain set of technologies?
So the next question is: What should the umbrella term be?
I believe Eric Meyer has been using “Open web stack”, which is accurate and works with developers. However, I think we need something a little shorter and snappier (preferably an acronym of 6 letters or less that can be pronounced easily. Like AJAX.).
Something that combines W3C, open, web… the WOW stack? Maybe not, any other ideas?
We need something else, or HTML5 will become entrenched as the umbrella term.
I fear it’s already too late: HTML5 seems to be quite deeply entrenched as it is, if even W3C is using it.