Read the piece on ln.hixie.ch ↗
Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.
Their wordsThe reality of the situation was that the power lay entirely in the hands of the users. The users chose browsers. A browser vendor that ignored what the users wanted would lose market share. Market share is everything in this space.
Our reading
When browsers disagree with a web specification, the specification is wrong and must change.
Their wordsThe WHATWG was founded on this core principle — the specifications need to actually specify reality. When the browsers disagree with the spec, the spec is by definition incorrect and needs to change, regardless of how much technically superior the design in the spec is.
Keep reading
The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.