🔫 No, Google Did Not Unilaterally Decide to Kill XSLT
I posted about this earlier, but there's more going on than I realized. Here's a more comprehensive take on the issue from Eric Meyer:
It’s uncommon, but not unheard of, for a GitHub issue to spark an uproar. That happened over the past month or so as the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, which I still say should have called themselves a Task Force instead) issue “Should we remove XSLT from the web platform?” was opened, debated, and eventually locked once the comment thread started spiraling into personal attacks. Other discussions have since opened, such as a counterproposal to update XSLT in the web platform, thankfully with (thus far) much less heat.
[...]
“So it’s already been decided and we just have to bend over and take the changes our Googlish overlords have decreed!” many people shouted. It’s not hard to see where they got that impression, given some of the things Google has done over the years, but that’s not what’s happening here. Not at this point. I’d like to set some records straight, as an outside observer of both Google and the issue itself.
I still don't want to see browsers drop support for XSLT, but it's good to know it's not a relatively sudden decision by a single browser vendor being shoved down everyone's throat.
In any case, there's certainly a lot of room for improvement in the processes surrounding all of this.