FW: On the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) document

On Tuesday's EME call I mentioned that the WG Chairs were working with the W3C Team on the status of the EME CfC.  The message below is the result of those discussions.  

You should expect the Chairs to follow up now on the CfC thread on public-html-admin@w3.org to outline our recommended next steps.

/paulc

Paul Cotton, Microsoft Canada
17 Eleanor Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2E 6A3
Tel: (425) 705-9596 Fax: (425) 936-7329


-----Original Message-----
From: Philippe Le Hegaret [mailto:plh@w3.org] 
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2013 11:10 AM
To: public-html-admin@w3.org
Cc: Paul Cotton; Maciej Stachowiak; Sam Ruby
Subject: On the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) document

There have been several discussions in the past two weeks around the call for consensus to publish as a First Public Working Draft the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) document [1].

Since some of the discussions have been around whether the EME specification is within the scope of the Working Group or not, the HTML Chairs asked the W3C Team to provide clarifications, which I provide below.

The HTML Working Group is chartered to provide "APIs for the manipulation of linked media" [2]. As such, API extensions to the HTMLMediaElement interface are in scope for the HTML Working Group. This includes work items like the Media Source Extensions, already published as a First Public Working Group, or the Encrypted Media Extensions. In fact, the HTML Working Group created a mailing list for that effect last year [3].

Plan 2014 promotes the use of modularity to manage the size and complexity of the specifications while reducing social conflict. Following the discussion around the HTML charter since May
2012 [4], we have refined the next charter to be more explicitly on media extensions, without imposing as much constraints as possible [5].

As this work is in scope, it is appropriate for the HTML Working Group to work on extensions specs like the Encrypted Media Extensions specification.

The latest proposed charter [4] mentions "additions to the HTMLMediaElement element interface, to support use cases such as live events or premium content; for example, additions for: facilitating adaptive streaming (Media Source Extensions); supporting playback of protected content". This draft charter will be circulated to the Advisory Committee for review and comments shortly.

This clarification is not a statement of support towards the technical approach taken in the EME specification or the CfC itself. While the W3C Team do believe that use cases like premium content should be addressed in the Open Web Platform in order to bring it to its full potential, we're also looking forward for the HTML Working Group to address any technical concerns raised against the EME draft.

Thank you,

Philippe,
for the W3C Team

[1]
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media-fpwd.html

[2] http://www.w3.org/2007/03/HTML-WG-charter.html

[3] http://www.w3.org/2012/05/04-html-wg-minutes.html#item05

[4] http://www.w3.org/2012/05/04-html-wg-minutes.html#item06

[5] http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2012/

Received on Friday, 8 February 2013 16:23:22 UTC