Håkon is a clear standards advocate; just because he may also be Opera’s CTO does not mean this activity is coming from Opera at all. Here is what WaSP have to say:

“In a public effort to encourage Microsoft to add as much CSS 2 support as possible as its developers embark on IE7, Håkon Wium Lie (CTO of Opera Software and the father of CSS) and the Web Standards Project have begun the development of a test suite, known as “Acid2.””

Note it says Håkon & WaSP — not Opera and WaSP.

Scoble has used this mis-perception as a justification to dismiss this project as an Opera publicity stunt, and the ridiculous suggestion that WaSP is some branch of Opera software – when if anything it is as close/closer to the gecko community.

In the comments to Scoble, several WaSP member have made clear that this is going to be a collective test, designed to allow interoperability between browser vendors. Let’s not give Microsoft the ammunition to shoot Acid2 down.

I need only point to Web Forms 2, I think. That’s how the Web should progress. It doesn’t have to be the W3C, but it does have to be co-operative.

“The Web Standards Project will be hosting Håkon Wium Lie’s acid2 test suite for CSS 2.1.”

What a disappointing response from Scoble, not only is his indignation so misplaced as to be sadly amusing, he fails in even FUDing properly. I at least would have expected something of more substance, which is why I suspect it is not very representative of MS opinion (as I’m sure it would have been better executed if it was!) Read the comments for clear replies from Molly on his supposed “snub” and info from WaSP members past and present about MS’s persistent failure to work with WaSP for years. The comments also repeatedly break down his utter inability to FUD the distinction between standards and features. All calculators should at least add 2+2 to get 4 right?