By adopting a strict doctype we’ve really been opting in all along in a sense. And if the site breaks in a new version just throw in a transitional doctype until fixed.

The creepiest thing about the whole affair isn’t the meta option though, its the Microsoft trust option. I really don’t trust microsoft’s business arm not to turn around in 4 years time saying that’s not viable and with new managers in web dev head straight back to proprietary bad old days… it will take some time to earn that trust among web developers I expect.

“But right at the end the Aaron asked…”

into the WasP guys.

“But right at the end the WaSP guys asked..”

Your article Automatically Opting in to IE8s Standards Mode offers a great concise view of the proposal so I’ll link to it from the comments…

I’ve had the sneaking question all along about why not still use the doctype switch but it never really got past that nagging thought at the back of my head. Like all things brilliant it’s a slap on the forehead and asking why didn’t I think of that… of course.

So my apologies again for missing you off the attribution Aaron, it was entirely unintentional. I must have read your question towards the end about five or six times to fully absorb it.

Or the short answer is Oops!

I, too, think that the Strict DOCTYPE is a great alternative if the numbers support it (in fact, I just wrote a post on it as well). Similarly, I’m also interested in exploring the possibility that an XHTML mime-type could trigger standards mode.