What makes a compelling story for me is the browser peace, though. The web as a platform (“The Web Platform”) wins through consensus about standardization. I blogged recently about standards in the device era. What I didn’t touch on is whether patents will thwart the attempt to build out the promise of a seamlessly interoperable web. I’m not moderating a discussion dubbed “Browser Wars” this year, but I’ll leave last year’s attendees (as proxies for their browser companies) some fly-by notes:

Dear Darin (aka Google Chrome guy): I’m sorry I went easy on you last year. You guys can afford to move faster than us on some things, because you don’t have the marketshare considerations we do. You also have an armada of people working on Chrome (I think you have more PR people than we have employees, but that’s cool). I value interaction with you guys, not least of all because you have big web applications that can help drive use cases for all the stuff you put through in standards (GMail, etc.). We don’t have that, so we need to be diligent about developer relations, which is my big passion these days. We’re doing great things with WebGL (and the guys you have in standards are top-notch). I just hope we can agree about other stuff, like the right course of action on HTML5 Video.

Dear Chris Wilson (aka Microsoft guy, aka “go to” guy for IE team for years and years): You really handled my nagging last year with grace, and you made me look bad for doing it (I’m sorry). And you know what? You guys’ recent blog post about working with the HTML5 Community was really, really encouraging. I’m glad we agree on some things, like the fact that the SQLite API is the wrong choice for the web, and that we’ll work to fix this with a successor proposal, like Indexed DB. But what about video, canvas, 3D graphics, and all those other things? I’m watching, and expecting big things from you guys. What’s generally surprising to me is that with the promise of an agreement on fonts and other things, we’re agreeing more than disagreeing. Maybe browser ballot issues in the EU, coupled with the stance organizations are taking about killing IE6, will collectively improve the situation for the web (that you guys kind of caused).

Dear Apple: *sigh. I guess you couldn’t make it to the panel for the past three years, but that’s no biggie. Your participation in standards more than compensates for your restrictions on public speaking. The iPhone’s got some great stuff with respect to Orientation Events for Safari in it. Maybe we can agree on standardizing this stuff, just as we agree on other device capabilities, like WebGL (which works in nightly builds). And Safari 4.05 really moves the needle on the web platform, implementing the kinds of Ajax improvements we worked on together. I’m optimistic that your patent portfolio won’t cloud the future, and that the web will benefit from your smarts.

Dear Chaals, Opera Guy: You’re a standards titan. You guys implement everything! Congratulations on Opera 10.50, which has slick features. Particular kudos on doing the right thing on HTML5 Video in Opera 10.50! It’s clear, however, that we don’t agree on Widgets vs. the Open Web. They are very different, but some of your guys argue that they really aren’t that different (see my general thoughts on what to do in the device space). I think equating them as the same thing is sheer folly on you guys’ part. That being said, Opera Mini is a smart piece of technology, and I definitely felt a little rueful that Firefox for Mobile (Fennec) won’t work on all the devices Opera Mini works on that I saw used by the audiences I addressed in India.

Lastly, Dear Web Developer: I’m keen to spend time with you here at SxSW, since you’re really what drives us all. Brendan’s here as well (as are lots of the Firefox team, addons, JetPack, etc.), and I’ll try and get the other guys (mentioned above) to come out for beers, maybe some time after the Mozilla Party at SxSW.

It’s also being cleverly co-opted as a symbol for MozCampMumbai, another amazing Mozilla community event, taking place on Sunday July 19 in Mumbai.

Speaking at MozCampDelhi was one of the highlights at the start of this year, and I’m sorry I can’t be at MozCampMumbai in person. Asa, Mary and I recorded a video for the occasion, which I suspect we’ll post on Air Mozilla before long. I spoke about font-face, HTML5 Video, and a few other things that I think are particularly relevant to folks attending MozCampMumbai.  If you’re attending MozCampMumbai and reading this after you’ve watched me prattle on in the video, happy MozHunt   Enjoy some vada-pav, hackery and conversations about the Web.

My buddy Cindy Li fixes things. Like the time she fixed my kitchen sink with a broom, or realigned my closet door with a kitchen knife. Her blog post on DIY VW Bug lightbulb changing received more comments than any other blog post she wrote. She’s also designed a bunch of stuff, and so I pestered her to give my blog a face-lift.

Matt Harris, who translated Cindy’s design into code for WordPress (and code is poetry), gave me a three-column HTML5 template and some widgetry. Cindy used a picture of me clambering over a rocky hillock in San Francisco as a metaphor for the ‘new new arunerblog.’

So there it is. I’ve given the medium a facelift, and I promise you’ll hear more from me on my shiny new blog.

For one, I now actually work for a browser company. Sure, some folks argued that I never really left (at least spiritually, since the last time around) but there’s a difference between just contributing and picking up a paycheck. And this time, we’ve got a fourth participant — Darin Fisher, who now works on Google Chrome, will join the discussion I moderate. This will be a fun session — we’ll have to break Darin in, but he’s been around the block, too, with past history working on Mozilla. It’ll be a spirited discussion (some of us will talk smack), and audience participation makes it all worth it. But really, we want to discuss where the web is going from here. The web is 20 years old now, and was feted where it was originally invented today, at a nuclear research institute (CERN) in Switzerland. With the JavaScript performance wars, escalation on the standards front about things like fonts and graphics, and the advent of a new entrant, where do these guys think it will all go?

Some things, however, don’t change much over the course of three years. Still no Apple — their PR machinery won’t allow it, given the publicity this thing has gotten. But Darin (who worked on Firefox and Chrome) will speak for Google’s use of WebKit, Charles McCathieNevile (worked on lots of W3C specifications; is Opera’s standards officer) will speak again for Opera, Chris Wilson will represent IE (worked on every single version of the thing, and is a CSS muckety-muck), and Brendan (invented JavaScript) will represent Firefox.

If you’re in Austin, say hi. If my voice holds up, you can also see me at Fray Cafe, telling a story.

It’s about midnight, and a wedding party next door is boisterously dancing to loud drum beats, preventing us from drifting off to sleep.  sethb gazes out at the shadows behind the curtain with wide open, sleep-addled eyes.  Like me, he’s probably exhausted and jet-lagged, but he is curious and intrigued by what he is looking at.  It dawns on me that sethb’s adventurous curiosity will make him a great travel buddy as we do a Mozilla trip through India, hitting the road lean and mean.  It’s our first day in Delhi, and it’s set a high octane precedent for whatever else will happen.  Twenty or so hours ago, Seth got in from Europe, after FOSDEM; I got in at the same time from California and we meet up at Indira Gandhi Airport, Delhi.  We haven’t really slept much.

Earlier in the day, we attended an event at the Indian Social Institute called MozCampDelhi, put together by the inimitable Mohak Prince in just a few short days. Mohak (aka “~~~STigMaTa~~~ ~~~HaLLuCiNaTiNg AmBiGuiTy~~~” in all his emails) is a Mozilla Campus Rep in India, and has a real flair for organization.  Along with a really sharp crew of open source enthusiasts that helped put the event together, Mohak brought together an impressive audience of professionals, students, and hobbyists.  It was a great crowd for a Tuesday afternoon. It was also pretty illustrative of the use of Twitter, Wikis, and the blogosphere in India as instruments of event promotion and spontaneous UnConferencing. I sensed that this was going to be a really smart, savvy and interactive bunch of people, and I remember feeling really elated to be there.

MozCampDelhi’s afternoon session started out with a Skype presentation by Pascal Finette, discussing the Mozilla Labs Concept Series.  The important thing here is that contributions for directions the ‘fox can go aren’t restricted to those who can code; anyone can submit a prototype or an image or a video clip of themselves explaining something with interpretive dance (I exaggerate, but why not?).  Pascal’s talk stimulated discussion in the crowd about Creative Commons, and other lab projects such as Ubiquity and Weave.  Folks wanted to know whether localization initiatives were also part of the purview.

Seth then discussed localization initiatives. Against the backdrop of the BBC publicity about Firefox in Hindi [BBC] (amongst other languages like Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, etc.), I was personally interested in the number of users of a localized browser at MozCampDelhi. Very few hands went up when I asked who used Firefox in a localized version, but this could be a function of the audience.  Seth got a great question about string transliteration across Indic languages, rather than always reinventing the wheel on a given Indic localization. This was something we took up with other folks in Pune.

As a bit of an intermission between talks, Mohak showed us a video telling the “story of Firefox.”  This just really cracked me up.  It had Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross as post-Netscape visionaries in a sort of animated version of the browser wars.  When I see stuff like that, I’m always reminded of the fact that my day job impacts people. Lots of people.

My talk was about the Open Web — I’ll have my actual slides on SlideShare soon.  All of my demos can be found on the Mozilla Library wiki, but in particular, I reused a lot of eye candy from Vlad’s talk on Web Graphics and Multimedia.  I showed the audience demos of SVG, Canvas, CSS, and the HTML5 video element (on a trunk build).  I also showed them the Bespin IDE running on localhost (later, at IIT Kanpur, I’d have students hack on code using Bespin — stay tuned for that update).  The questions from the audience were provocative.  Somebody asked us, somewhat pugnaciously,  if “Opera was simply a better browser.” *sigh There’s one in every crowd.  My opinion is self-explanatory, but I did point out to mobile enthusiasts that unlike Opera, we weren’t making a J2ME midlet for lower-end devices (and we weren’t providing a web proxy).  Instead, Fennec goes after smarter phones, and is still a work in progress. In general, the keenly expressed desire to look for alternatives to IE and Windows is really awesome to behold. It was a welcome question, and I got it again repeatedly at IITK and Pune as well. Firefox memory leaks were also pointed out in no uncertain terms, and this clearly is something I’m going to take back and look at closer.

Others were really curious about open codecs on the web, and wanted to know if existing formats (like Flash), by virtue of their widespread availability, would stymie the advance of Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis as open alternatives to the incumbents.  I pointed out that it was about the Open Web — that is, the intersection of fonts, graphics (SVG and Canvas), style (CSS), and video which is where the promise lay. That is, video as as first rate citizen of the web, not as something punted over a walled, rectangular garden (aka a proprietary third-party plugin) within a web page.

After it was over, Kinshuk Sunil got Seth and I to talk about stuff on candid camera. We’re both totally beat after we call the event a wrap, but my gastronomical enthusiasm convinces Seth to come with me and some family to Old Delhi for kababs (“Secret of Good Mood, Taste of Karim’s Food”). We haven’t really built much acclimatization time into this schedule.

Oh, and then the drums. They stop slightly past the witching hour, marking the end of Day 1. We’re off to Agra tomorrow, catching a 6a.m. train. So it begins.

Thank you. For two years, you’ve put up with my jittery nagging a few hours before the panel, and for two years, it has rocked.

Dear Apple,

We really missed you. Our “Browser Wars” panel at SxSWi ‘08 was standing room only, with people lining up outside who couldn’t get in. We discussed stuff that was really relevant to Safari, touching on mobility, standards, security, JavaScript, and stuff like that — PC Mag has a rough record of the conversation. People love your stuff — the MacBook Pro and the iPhone were ubiquitous at the Austin Convention Center. And while you are open in your standards participation (working groups like Web API and HTML conduct business in the open), and while you are candid on the Surfin’ Safari Weblog, it would be great if your PR / Marketing department could let you come out and play with us. Maybe next year?

Dear SxSWi 2008 Organizers,

You gave us a great time slot this year (thanks, Hugh!) — 2PM on Monday, which beats last year’s early morning time slot. And I recognize that organizing this conference is tough, and you guys do a great job every year. But maybe if we do this next time, you could get us a bigger room? People were literally turned away this year. Maybe if we had a bigger room, like some of the other panels, this wouldn’t be the case? Designers and developers are deeply interested in browsers and Web technology — they are fundamental to the often odd trade we ply.

Dear SxSWi Audience,

Thank you. You make the show, every year. You’ve shown that you will stage an insurrection if you aren’t treated with dignity and respect. Thank you for the great questions and the spirited hallway discussions. Thank you for discussing broader societal things as well, like gender bias, with such insightful analysis. May our tribe prosper, but prosper equitably.

Young-ish trendy persons with laptops and iPhones and loosely slung satchels meander around the Austin Convention Center. Panels are being held, and the sun is shining (mostly), and the after parties are kicking, and film makers, musicians, designers, and geeks are all coalescing, as per the norm.

Last year, I chaired a panel bringing Brendan Eich (Mozilla/Firefox, and inventor of JavaScript), Chris Wilson (Microsoft/IE, worked on every version of IE in recent memory), and Charles McCathieNevile (Opera — a standards titan who travels the world working on standards) to the table to discuss where the Web was going. It was a great panel discussion which embraced spirited debate.

A year has passed, and PC Magazine thinks we’re about ready to usher in the “boring era” of Web browsers. Really? A little bit like the End of History, where things were supposed to be all nice and boring after the end of the Cold War, but ended up being anything but?

OK, look. I’ll be the first to admit that the term “wars” shouldn’t be used when talking about Web browsers. This year, when I agreed to do the panel again at SxSW 2008, I used the term “war” to pack the auditorium. But let’s be frank about a few things.

Things have been a bit acrimonious lately, especially when we think about the future of JavaScript. Brendan lobbed one at Chris about (and I simplify greatly) C# vs. ECMAScript in an “Open Letter.” Chris lobbed one back, claiming he was being sincere and informal and non-corporate. Then, of course, there’s the fact that Opera’s complaining about Microsoft — in court!

The point is, we still have a lot to talk about. There are still vibrant differences about where the Web is really going and people are especially interested in web access from mobile devices. I wish Apple’s PR people would let their guys participate, but we’ll have to party without them. Come to our panel at SxSW 2008! I promise you a good time.

Now look –errare humanum est, right? Especially after a transatlantic flight, when you’re really, really tired and groggy? A sea of humans goes and stands in line behind various immigration counters, and I flow with them. I can’t really read the signs, since people are blocking the path ahead. And the lines are long.

As I near the counter, when I’m four people away from the end of the line, I notice that the sign on top of that particular counter says “EU Nationals Only.” And I glance a few lines to my right, and see a very long line of non-EU nationals, behind a counter that says “Non EU Nationals.” Whoops. I’m not an EU national — I have an Indian passport. What to do? I’m in some haste, since I don’t want to miss the connecting flight. Should I have gone to the back of the non-EU line, or waited to see what would happen at the end of the “EU Nationals Only” line? I wasn’t sure. I reasoned on the spot that the German official behind the “EU Only” line would perhaps stamp me through, but point out that I was in the wrong line. There was a chance that he would make me go to the back of the other line, but I was willing to take it.

It’s finally my turn, and I give him my passport.

“Wrong line, Mr. Gandhi” he says, and throws my passport back at me.

Umm, what?

“Gandhi?” I say stupidly?

“Yes, Mr. Gandhi. It’s zat line over zere. You go zere.”

I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“Gandhi?” I ask again. But now, I’m stung. I’m feeling the helpless sting of racism, and it feels really bad.

“Go ZERE. To ZAT line.”

Don’t get me wrong — there are worse things than being called Mr. Gandhi. I mean, the movie won a lot of Oscars, the guy liberated a nation through non-violence, and his face is on money and stuff. But, shouldn’t an official of the German government not say things like that? Or was this all humorous, with me being a bad sport?

So I went to the back of the line, choosing to ignore the urge to grin ruefully and say “Thanks for the pointer, Mr. Sauerkraut.” Because at that very instant, I couldn’t think of a positive historical figure from Germany that was around at the same time as Gandhi was, so that’s the best I could come up with.

Ricardo Elias’ The 12 Labors is as watchable as its peers, and shares thematic elements with Black Orfeu. Like the 1959 “cross-over” classic, the protagonist of The 12 Labors, Heracles, is named after a character in Greco-Roman mythology. The connection to mythology here, however, is not as pronounced. As we slowly learn, the mythical 12 tasks of Heracles (which includes slaying beasts, cleaning a filthy celestial stable in a day, and other impossible errands of redemption) serves more of a symbolic role in the story of a black youth in Sao Paulo.

Heracles (a winsome Sydney Santiago) is just out of the notorious Febem reformatory (a jail for minors), and seeks employment as a “Moto Boy” in Sao Paulo under the tutelage of his cousin Jonas (Flavio Baraqui). Moto Boys are errand and delivery boys on motorcycle, typically associated with a courier company. Sao Paulo’s streets run thick with 300,000 such Moto Boys, and as they weave their way through horrendous traffic conditions, it is said that as many as 2 a day die in a road accident.

Heracles’ tasks aren’t monstrous, but are more in line with the various trials and occasional indignities suffered by the Moto Boys in general. I won’t spoil it by breaking down each task, since a comparison to mythology isn’t instructive. The Brazilian hip-hop soundtrack choreographs scenes through intense Sao Paulo traffic beautifully. Heracles is a budding artist, and has shrewd observations about the people he meets as asides in his head. There’s a particularly thrilling scene which is essentially a short movie within a movie, in which one of Heracles’ comics is brought to life in a flashback sequence.

This movie bursts with life, but is dark, with a closing scene involving a motorcycle journey to the edge of the earth, by the ocean, serving as a striking metaphor for mortality’s encounter with the infinite. As the credits rolled, the audience was pensive and introspective.

We got a chance to speak to Ricardo Elias in person after the movie, and he said something that struck me as emblematic of what this movie is about. He said that in order to rise above your circumstances when you are black and poor in Sao Paulo is to do something akin to what a demi-god like Hercules had to do in the myth. To thwart your destiny, you had to achieve the impossible, like a member of the Olympian pantheon.

The opportunity to chat with Elias in person in a five minute aside about the parallels between Brazil and India as he walked out will be one of the highlights of this year’s SFIFF for me. There’s more to be said about finding in Brazilian narratives a vicarious link with Indian realities, but I’ll leave with the sentiment that I’d like emerging Indian cinema to be inspired by what’s coming out of Brazil.