RE: Mobile phone capabilities list?

As one of those MWI chairs, I confirm that this was one of the main motivations for wanting WURFL representation. Working together we can fill whatever gaps we may perceive to be present. WURFL is now remarkably good for the community it was motivated to serve. The "big-shop" commercial users of device descriptions frequently have concerns (for any potential solution) about validation processes, accountability, trust, SLAs, private extensions, control of access to extensions, interfacing with commercial back-ends, performance, missing data, 24x7 updates, conflict resolution etc etc etc.

When it comes to being simple and accessible, WURFL has a lot to offer, and this should encourage more people to consider the mobile Web as an opportunity, and not just a challenge, which in turn will grow the market to everyone's benefit.

Better to have a fair piece of a much bigger pie than a whole bite-sized version; we may find that WURFL will help us achieve the 5-course lunch :)

I want, at this point, to note that the DDWG is not about WURFL and makes no statement regarding the pros or cons of this or any specific product. WURFL is simply a respected example that has the most visibility within this particular community and its openness gives us a common reference point from which to argue. UAProf also has a certain degree of openness, though it is not the developer community that contributes to the information held within UAProf profile instances.

I think this thread has served to illustrate the value that the open source community can bring to the table.

Regards,
---Rotan.


-----Original Message-----
From: Andrea Trasatti [mailto:atrasatti@gmail.com]
Sent: 27 July 2005 15:26
To: Dale Gonzalez; public-ddwg@w3.org
Subject: Re: Mobile phone capabilities list?



On 7/27/05, Dale Gonzalez <dale.gonzalez@air2web.com> wrote:
> In my opinion, this makes IMEI of limited utility.  I guess my view is that
> given all of the challenges associated with collecting and verifying this
> data and the limited number of hours/people available to tackle the problem,
> we would be better served focusing our attention somewhere else.  I love
> WURFL.  I would rather see an open source, formal program for certifying the
> data it provides and closing any gaps between it and "commercial" solutions.
>  Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. 

This is one of the reasons why the MWI chairs wanted some WURFL
representatives in the WG.

We are here to work together, see what are the benefits of each
system/application, find the lacks and try to do something good.

If WURFL is the best we (developers) can have I'm sure the W3C and the
companies sponsoring the MWI will have a different look at the WURFL
project in the near future.

-- 

Andrea Trasatti
atrasatti@gmail.com
Experimental Blog: http://trasatti.blogspot.com

Received on Wednesday, 27 July 2005 15:27:42 UTC