[The] moment we start treating the Web as a zero-sum game and stop collaborating on the vision of a better online experience, nobody wins.
WebSQL[0] is an example where Mozilla (and their enabler in the HTML 5 standard, Ian Hickson) actively hurt users and developers by supposedly avoiding a monoculture by demanding multiple implementations. WebSQL should have been part of HTML 5, and we, as a community, have failed both users and developers since it's not. We failed because of an ideology that is hurting us in this instance.
Some history:
The lack of multiple implementations of SQL (the language) is the "reason" the WebSQL standard is in maintenance mode. But here's the deal: all WebSQL implementations today (e.g. WebKit, Google Gears) are based on SQLite, which is public domain software.
Specifying that SQLite[1] itself be used in the WebSQL standard, along with a WebSQL API for querying the actual SQLite version (e.g. "SQLite 3.7.15.2"), would directly solve literally every actual objection someone might have about WebSQL, except the multi-implementation/monoculture objection.
But the "multi-implementation/monoculture" objection should not be an objection at all since we're talking about SQLite: public domain software that every browser vendor can just use directly, and interested parties can check out the code and study if they want to know what is supported, and what, if any, "quirks" are present (the usual reason why codebases are not used as "standards", which is a valid complaint).
SQLite is just pure awesome and WebSQL makes it possible to do some really great things in the browser. Ideology here is just hurting everyone, for no actual benefit: instead of a monoculture, we have no culture at all.
WebSQL as implemented was a terrible idea. Simply exposing SQLite's dialect of SQL to the web was always a non-starter in terms of web standards. You will quickly find (as you always do on the web) that pages would depend on bugs and other quirks in a particular version of SQLite, so trying to update the version you ship would be painful. You could ship multiple versions, or some sort of IE-like compatibility hell, or you could expose the version number and force web developers to test for ever possible version of SQLite so they can handle quirks themselves (protip: they won't).
The only way it was ever going to get off the ground was if someone fully spec'ed out a dialect of SQL that browsers could implement without being tied to the specifics of how SQLite works. Nobody stepped up to do that (and browser vendors weren't exactly foaming at the mouth to write their own SQL engine), so it died. You'd be better off writing a JS SQL engine that worked on top of IndexedDB these days, given that that's shipping in all major browsers.
WebSQL[0] is an example where Mozilla (and their enabler in the HTML 5 standard, Ian Hickson) actively hurt users and developers by supposedly avoiding a monoculture by demanding multiple implementations. WebSQL should have been part of HTML 5, and we, as a community, have failed both users and developers since it's not. We failed because of an ideology that is hurting us in this instance.
Some history:
The lack of multiple implementations of SQL (the language) is the "reason" the WebSQL standard is in maintenance mode. But here's the deal: all WebSQL implementations today (e.g. WebKit, Google Gears) are based on SQLite, which is public domain software.
Specifying that SQLite[1] itself be used in the WebSQL standard, along with a WebSQL API for querying the actual SQLite version (e.g. "SQLite 3.7.15.2"), would directly solve literally every actual objection someone might have about WebSQL, except the multi-implementation/monoculture objection.
But the "multi-implementation/monoculture" objection should not be an objection at all since we're talking about SQLite: public domain software that every browser vendor can just use directly, and interested parties can check out the code and study if they want to know what is supported, and what, if any, "quirks" are present (the usual reason why codebases are not used as "standards", which is a valid complaint).
SQLite is just pure awesome and WebSQL makes it possible to do some really great things in the browser. Ideology here is just hurting everyone, for no actual benefit: instead of a monoculture, we have no culture at all.
[0] http://www.w3.org/TR/webdatabase/
[1] http://sqlite.org/