Re: [wmlprogramming] Verizon, guidelines

Tom, I think that your summary does not, in a subtle way, faithfully 
represent the positions I have expressed in the past.

Taking it from the three points in your summary:

 > 1. Made-for-mobile sites tend to be context-aware and contain less
 > content than their web equivalents.

correct

 > 2. Users are less likely to want full-web content (e.g. long "about" 
pages, privacy policies)
 > in a mobile context, but may occasionally want it.

correct, with a very import note. The fact that a user may want a 
full-web transcoded page does NOT imply that a user is entitled to have 
it. In particular, if the content owner does not want them to, users do 
not have this right.
Millions of internet users want to have access to free music, and can 
effectively get it by means of illegal P2P MP3 downloading and similar. 
This does not mean that they can do so legitimately (let alone that W3C 
creates standards around this practice).

 > 3. Transcoders should therefore be in a position to offer transcoded
 > desktop sites over made-for-mobile sites, if and only if such versions
 > are specifically requested.

Transcoders are free to offer the possibility of transcoding, but they 
should go out of their way to protect mobile optimised content AND the 
rights of fully-fledged websites that do not want to be transcoded. This 
is what the Manifesto says when it reads that "transcoders should err on 
the side of non-reformatting". The situation here is that some 
transcoders (notably novarra) go out of their way to fool websites and 
extort web content when a mobile version might be available.
My point is that CTG should be clear that this is not acceptable and the 
onus of protecting the rights of the content owners must be on the 
operators (which should create their transcoding requirements 
accordingly and pass part of that onus to transcoder vendors).

This could actually be one area for W3C to creare good transcoding 
rules: create a public interface for content providers to communicate to 
the operator that they want their web content transcoded with whatever 
transcoder the operators happen to have acquired.

As I had written in http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=1837  , CTG might 
specify that the operators adds the transcoder info in HTTP headers:

Via: Novarra-Vision/7.3
X-Transcoder-Offered: true
X-Transcoder-EntryPoint: http://novarra.dmz.telco.com/tr/url=

at this point, content owners could create their

http://www.company.com sites which recognize mobile devices through the 
original HTTP header they use today, while being given a chance to offer 
a transcoded version with something as simple as:

<c:if test="${transcoderOffered}">
<a href="${transcoderEntryPoint}http://www.ba.com">Access full Site</a>
</c:if>

This would create a more legitimate business practice for transcoder, 
operators and content owners, which would not infringe on anyone's rights.

Luca

Tom Hume wrote:
>
> Luca
>
> I think we've been through this a number of times, so I've moved the 
> discussion away from WMLProgramming. where going around the houses 
> once more on the issue might get you or I banned from the list.
>
> My view is that if the current text is objectionable because it 
> contains loopholes, we should tighten up the copy to retain the 
> current meaning, whilst eliminating these loopholes. When I've asked 
> you for stronger wording to remove these loopholes, you've suggested 
> the meaning to be changed[1].
>
> You and I have now seen a use case (in the discussion on WapReview[2]) 
> providing a circumstance where a user might request a transcoded 
> desktop experience over a made-for-mobile. For anyone who 
> (understandably) can't be bothered to wade through discussion to find 
> it, it's thus:
>
> 1. Made-for-mobile sites tend to be context-aware and contain less 
> content than their web equivalents.
> 2. Users are less likely to want full-web content (e.g. long "about" 
> pages, privacy policies) in a mobile context, but may occasionally 
> want it.
> 3. Transcoders should therefore be in a position to offer transcoded 
> desktop sites over made-for-mobile sites, if and only if such versions 
> are specifically requested.
>
> This seems reasonable to me. If I were providing a mobile version of 
> www.futureplatforms.com, I would want mobile users to get this version 
> by default and certainly wouldn't include full details of all our case 
> studies, say, on it; but I can imagine there being rare situations 
> where, nevertheless, users might want to read them in a mobile context.
>
> Tom
>
> [1] http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/wmlprogramming/message/28956
> [2] http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=1837
>
> On 21 Dec 2008, at 14:41, Luca Passani wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> > I suggest you re-read section 4.1.5 of the CT document:
>> >  http://www.w3.org/TR/ct-guidelines/#sec-altering-header-values
>>
>> I am very familiar with this section. As I have argued in the past, 
>> though, I think the only sensible thing to do is to remove clause 1,2 
>> and 3 (particularly 2!) completely.
>> Those clauses represent loopholes which make it harder to demonstrate 
>> that  this or that operator is in breach of CTG when they refer to 
>> CTG (because of 4.1.5 clause 2, the operator can always argue that, 
>> after all, the user wanted a web experience and this is still OK for 
>> W3C).
>>
>> The value of CTG is the possibility for transcoder vendors to appear 
>> as if their installations comply to W3C rules. For this reason, W3C 
>> must do whatever it can to remove loopholes (like the three clauses 
>> in 4.1.5) and avoid that the W3C name is used as a tool in the hands 
>> of those who abuse the ecosystem and behave unfairly to other mobile 
>> stakeholders (primarily content owners and mobile developers who may 
>> have a mobile experience in place).
>>
>> Luca

Received on Sunday, 21 December 2008 15:37:10 UTC