The thing is, xslt isn't underpinning much of anything, that is why google is removing it instead of fixing it.
Google does contribute to software that it uses. When i say google is not a charity, i mean why would they continue to use a library that is not useful to them, just so they can have an excuse to contribute to it? It makes very little sense.
> The thing is, xslt isn't underpinning much of anything
An awful lot of stuff depends on xslt under the hood. Web frontend, maybe not much any more, that ship has long since sailed. But anything Java? Anything XML-SOAP? That kind of stuff breathes XML and XSLT. And, at least MS Office's new-generation file formats are XML... and I'm pretty sure OpenOffice is just the same.
Let me rephrase that, client side xslt in browser isn't underpinning much of anything. I agree there are more uses in the enterprise world, although i think most of your examples are more XML not XSLT (people really shouldn't comflate the two. XML underpins half the world). I've never heard of anyone using xslt on a microsoft office docx file.
I'd also assume the java world is using xalan-j or saxon, not libxslt.
> i mean why would they continue to use a library that is not useful to them, just so they can have an excuse to contribute to it? It makes very little sense.
They took upon themselves the role of benevolent stewards of the web. According to their own principles they should exercise extreme care when adding or removing features to the web.
However, since they dominate the browser market, and have completely subsumed all web-related committees, they have turned into arrogant uncaring dictators.
> However, since they dominate the browser market, and have completely subsumed all web-related committees, they have turned into arrogant uncaring dictators.
Apple and firefox agree with them. They did not do this unilaterally. By sone accounts it was actually firefox originally pushing for this.
While others may agree with them [1], Google are the ones immediately springing into action [2]. They only started collecting feedback on which sites may break after they already pushed "Intention to remove" and prepared a PR to remove it from Chromium.
[2] Same as with alert/prompt. While all browsers would want to remove them, Chrome not only immediately decided to remove them with very short notice, but literally refused to even engage with people pointing out issues until a very large public outcry: https://gomakethings.com/google-vs.-the-web/#the-chrome-team...
There's a difference between "we agree on principle" and "we don't care, remove/ship/change YOLO"
Google does contribute to software that it uses. When i say google is not a charity, i mean why would they continue to use a library that is not useful to them, just so they can have an excuse to contribute to it? It makes very little sense.