Very interesting… the W3C has taken a stab at a Widgets spec for packaging and scripting and other! Awesome! Exactly what is needed — order, consistency, a common technical approach.
From the W3C web site:
2006-11-09: The Web Application Formats Working Group has released the First Public Working Draft of Widgets 1.0. Also known as gadgets or modules, widgets are small programs like clocks, stock tickers, news casters, games and weather forecasters that display and update remote data and run on the Web browser environment. The specification defines the packaging format, manifest file and scripting interfaces for downloading and installation on client machines. Also published, the Client-Side Web Applications (Widgets) Requirements document has been updated and retitled. Also read about Rich Web Clients.
Now we need to make sure this extends to mobility…
Update: Just wanted to point out that the Widget spec was authored by Opera Software and the Queensland University of Technology… great to see Opera taking the initiative – logical step. Would have been good if more (micro) browser-vendors participated in the spec definition, but hey, now we have a good “baseline”…
ceo