Re: 'contrary to principles'

On Friday 2013-07-05 11:32 -0700, David Singer wrote:
> [[[apologies, I accidentally threaded the previous version of this into another thread; this is a verbatim re-post starting a separate thread]]]
> 
> I have a question for this group.  We've heard that EME is 'contrary to our principles', but I am not actually sure that we have a very clear agreement on what those principles are.  I think it might be good to step back and ask what they are, and then we can see in what way, and degree, we are violating some.  It might point out a better road ahead (maybe).
> 
> Here's an attempt at four.  I am sure I missed some.  Some I put up here mostly because I think they are sometimes implied, but as you'll see, I am not sure they hold very well.

I also attempted to list some in
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-restrictedmedia/2013Jun/0342.html .


> 
> 1) Royalty-free.  Easy one;  quoting the patent policy "In order to promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented on a Royalty-Free (RF) basis."
> 
> (I think EME as-is is on track to meet this.)

I think EME is on track to make it theoretically possible to have a
royalty-free implementation, but I don't think that's the point; a
royalty-free implementation wouldn't be useful.  (In this case
royalties might not be only patent royalties, but also payments to
gain access to confidential technology.)

> 2) Implementability.  I think that there may be an implied principle that if you implement (enough, I hope not all) W3C recommendations, then your implementation can go anywhere -- visit anything -- on the open web (though you may be asked to pay for content, or sign agreement, create accounts, and so on, you won't be blocked by an technical gap).
> 
> I'm not sure we do well at meeting this principle, if it exists.  Obvious problems are web plug-ins, such as Flash or QuickTime.  Which leads to the next candidate.

I agree that there are legacy areas where we don't meet this
principle, but I think we've recognized that failing to meet this
principle has led to serious problems that make it hard to bring the
Web to new hardware or operating systems.

> 3) No back-end.  Another implied principle is that the specs are 'complete', and that no lower functionality is needed for them to do something useful.  (In the case of EME, that would be the protection system).
> 
> Again, I am not sure we do well at meeting this one, if it exists;  obvious places are interfaces to audio (what do you do on a terminal with no audio capability?), OpenGL, and other specs that are there precisely to provide a bridge to something 'outside'.  If web sites depend on these, and your terminal doesn't have the required back-ends, you may be out of luck.

Perhaps another way to put this principle is that if there are
dependencies, then the dependencies *also* meet the principles?

> 4) Open-source.  I think there is an implication that W3C recommendations can be, maybe are, all implemented in open-source.  I think they are implementable there, but actually the W3C doesn't even have a requirement for reference code (unlike, say, ISO), let alone that there be open-source implementation.  (The reference code from other bodies is generally made available free of charge to conforming implementations).  I actually find little evidence that the W3C is an 'open source' body.

Perhaps there's a lack of evidence because there hasn't yet been a
case where there was even a question that something could be
implemented in open-source software, so it just never came up?

-David

-- 
𝄞   L. David Baron                         http://dbaron.org/   𝄂
𝄢   Mozilla                           http://www.mozilla.org/   𝄂

Received on Friday, 5 July 2013 21:08:03 UTC