Are you suggesting that there is no such thing as a failed open standard? I would argue that open standards can fail. However you are correct to raise the issue of what the criteria should be for a successful and for a failed open standard. I would suggest that HTML has been a success as has CSS, although CSS’s route to maturity was hindered by flawed support by, in particular, early versions of the Netscape browser.

Perhaps the success criteria should be determined by the ROI a standard provides to the users of the standard. Adopting a standard prematurely can provide a negative ROI, due to the lack of support for authoring tools and readers, compared with existing proprietary standards. A standard which eventually provides the ROI may become successful, but early adopters may find that using such standards too early in the standard’s maturity cycle is unproductive.

I personally started to use SVG in my curriculum in 2008, after having followed the development of the standard since 2003, because I believe nothing can stop SVG to become widely adopted. Instead of focusing on all the interactive flab that now lards the internet with all the silly bling bling ads, I feel that the web and hence the computer as a graphical display will come to maturity with SVG. Everything the graphics designer lost with HTML can be regained using SVG. Better even,.. we can finally rescale our designs without any fuss and use some braincells to overcome more important problems regarding interface design and how to get the user to act according to our will, rather than some imprinted methods. The flexibility of it allows for quick prototyping and adaptation of that to the live web.

Using a tool like Inkscape, I can design a basic website in no time and easily add all the thrills using an XML editor later. Okay,.. it still is pretty much coding now,.. but that was how I did HTML as well for quite a while until wysiwyg editors became mature enough. And we still don’t use any fast jquery coding with objects. SVG is a clear threat to all the proprietary giants out there. Adobe dropped SVG only after it bought Macromedia and Flash, MS followed suit by cooking up its own flavored crap and both of them are now loosing out on Open Standards..

Why? People that have to support all those applications and websites are not thrilled with the prospect of crippled standards, things that run only here or with this software. It’s the reason why graphics designers still can’t create a decent layout on a website and they will very easily understand the benefits of it. There are still quite some hurdles to overcome, but at least it finally gives freedom to the designer.