> Is Microsoft participating in the standards process at all? Or are they
> just going ahead with their HTML extensions and the Web be damned?
At least one Microsoft employee has been spotted on html-wg; see
<URL:http://www.acl.lanl.gov/HTML_WG/html-wg-95q4.messages/0005.html>,
and the related thread.
My guess is that they were just following Netscape's lead when they
unilaterally introduced new elements in their browser, and honestly
didn't know that this was considered a Bad Thing until there was a
public outcry.
> How would HTML v3 handle "inline audio", if it can at all? Would <FIG> do
> this?
Sure, why not? It does everything else :-)
Going by the MIME philosophy, which makes a top-level distinction
between text, image, sound, video, and "application-specific"
data, <BGSOUND> makes sense as a separate element. I think the
current philosophy in HTML development is to divide things into
"hypertext" and "embedded resources", in which case some form
of the <LINK> or <EMBED> elements might be more appropriate.