<p>What is the reason browsers do not correctly recognize:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;script src="foobar.js" /&gt; &lt;!-- self-closing script element --&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>Only this is recognized:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;script src="foobar.js"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>Does this break the concept of XHTML support?</p>

<p>Note: This statement is correct at least for all IE (6-8 beta 2).</p>

The non-normative appendix ‘HTML Compatibility Guidelines’ of the XHTML 1 specification says:
С.3. Element Minimization and Empty Element Content
Given an empty instance of an element whose content model is not
```
EMPTY
```
(for example, an empty title or paragraph) do not use the minimized form (e.g. use
```
<p> </p>
```
and not
```
<p />
```
).
XHTML DTD
specifies script elements as:
```
```
<!-- script statements, which may include CDATA sections -->
<!ELEMENT script (#PCDATA)>
```
```