If I remember correctly, nothing goes into HTML5 unless it has already been implemented by at least two major vendors.

So what you're saying is that first there's a period of "proprietary extension" which we should shun because that's evil incarnate, then one day someone flips a switch and it becomes a standard and we mock the people left behind. [I don't meant that's actually what you write. A more figurative "you" with a generous interpretation of "anyone promoting HTML5 today].

For many years now, the rallying cry of the web has been "industry standards". But now, suddenly, we have redefined standard to be something like "Google said so". Sometimes Apple gets to say so.

Without apologizing for how bad IE may have been, I am uncomfortable with this turn of events for two reasons:

1. It smells like hypocrisy. A lot. 2. HTML5 isn't slated to actually be a standard until 2012. Basically requiring implementations to work to a proto-spec kind of defeats the purpose of having standards.

Let's say, just theoretically, that IE implements web sockets according to the draft. Then a day later, the Google employee who writes the draft changes it. How many hours until there's a HN post about how IE implements web sockets wrong?

I think there's a big difference between implementers working in the open to write standards and create test implementations and keep the public informed about the progress toward standardization - as Mozilla, Apple, Opera, and Microsoft are doing with HTML5 and related efforts - as opposed to developing in secret, and launching new features fully-formed into the wild with no chance for discussion and usually no adequate spec, as both Microsoft and Netscape did during the browser wars.

Agreed. Except for the part where nobody seems to consider these "test" implementations. I'm not so much critical of the process as the apparent developer community attitude/reaction/expectations to a work in progress.

Most of the reactions I see here and on Reddit are dozens of people saying, "Great, I can't use this until it's in IE." I'm not exactly seeing mainstream sites depending on these in-development technologies.

Not quite right. Nothing will be in HTML5 as a final recommendation unless it's in 2+ major implementations. There's plenty in the current drafts of HTML5 which has not yet been implemented.