W3C Involvement In Flash & Silverlight

Question

It seems to me that the key USP of Flash/Silverlight is the ability to provide access (albeit indirectly) to the graphics subsystem of the client, enabling video, smooth transitions and "fancy" visual effects.

This sounds like a good idea, and a natural evolution/extension of HTML. But surely it would be better if someone like the W3C controlled such a technology, rather than Microsoft or Adobe locking users into their "platform".

Has the W3C taken a role in the development of these technologies, and if not, why?

Clarification: I suppose the thrust of my question is - why the W3C is not extending/evolving HTML (or creating another technology) in the Flash/Silverlight "direction" when it seems obvious (to Adobe & MS at least), and an open standard platform would be preferable.

Answer 1

The W3C has no real authority to "take a role" in the development of a proprietary technology. They can only be given such a role if the company that owns the technology decides to give it to them, and so far neither Adobe nor Microsoft has done so.

Answer 2

You can and in future will be able to increasingly more of what Flash and Silverlight are capable of using the Canvas HTML element, SVG and the new audio and video elements in HTML5.

See this 3D Canvas example for what is currently possible.

Answer 3

W3C did create another technology, sort of.

SVG is a pretty nice vector graphics standard that, combined with scripting, can do a bunch of things Flash can do, but all in plain XML and JavaScript instead of a lump of binary gunge. It's tricky to call this a Flash replacement as it works so very differently, but it can certainly hit some of the same spots where implemented as first-class browser objects.

There's no video in it, but HTML5 is attacking this (and unlike much of the rest of HTML5, some browsers are actually implementing it).

Of course without IE, these are always going to have limited applicability in the real world.

[Note: in any case, neither Silverlight nor Flash are really totally closed. See eg. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/ ]