The wheels of Internet governance turn slowly, but after years of discussion, the technical specifications for HTML5, the next version of the programming language that underpins the Web, are nearing their final form. Why should you care? Because as we put it in this 2010 feature story that is still worth reading (“The Web Is Reborn”), HTML5 challenges the notion that “the Web is dead” and that walled gardens of individual apps will be where all the action is.

“Not until the Web emerged as a common platform, with its openness spelled out in the shared DNA of HTML, did the Internet turn into the world’s greatest generator of economic value. … [B}y cleaning it up and moving it forward, HTML5 provides good reason to believe that the Web will remain the main platform for new services, while apps remain secondary.”