"SQLite was the spec" was the problem. No arbitrary version of any arbitrary vendor's software should be the core of a web-wide spec, no matter whether it's open source or popular or loved by millions.
The HTML5 authors & editors have already spent years reverse engineering and describing the behavior of existing browsers as part of that spec.
I'm sure everyone was overjoyed at the prospect of starting the same process for every quirk and bug of that specific version of SQLite, and bumping the spec every time the project released a new version. Or, alternately, living with a fork of that specific version of SQLite forever.
Seriously, that's an awesome way to write and maintain a spec. How about you do the web a solid and give it a shot? Come back when you've got something.
So inventing a completely new, untested set of storage semantics, and implementing them across browsers, is easier than picking a version of SQLite and forking it if necessary?
The HTML5 authors & editors have already spent years reverse engineering and describing the behavior of existing browsers as part of that spec.
I'm sure everyone was overjoyed at the prospect of starting the same process for every quirk and bug of that specific version of SQLite, and bumping the spec every time the project released a new version. Or, alternately, living with a fork of that specific version of SQLite forever.
Seriously, that's an awesome way to write and maintain a spec. How about you do the web a solid and give it a shot? Come back when you've got something.