RE: 48-Hour Consensus Call: InstateLongdesc CP Update

David Singer wrote:
"So your thesis is that we should stick with a poor solution, that works only in controlled environments (not the public internet), and with a limited number of UAs, not all, and for whcih the situation is not improving nor likely to, rather than do better?

"I'm sorry, I cannot give you a car because you already have a broken bicycle."  Pshaw, I say, I and many others have much higher aspirations."

I think (hope) we all share those higher aspirations. The thing that puzzles me is why we'd want to take away the broken bicycle before a quality car is available? In other words, what would we lose by leaving longdesc in situ, whilst we focus our collective energies on finding a robust replacement?

Léonie.
 
-----Original Message-----
From: David Singer [mailto:singer@apple.com] 
Sent: 17 September 2012 23:21
To: HTML Accessibility Task Force
Subject: Re: 48-Hour Consensus Call: InstateLongdesc CP Update


On Sep 17, 2012, at 15:06 , Gez Lemon <g.lemon@webprofession.com> wrote:

> On 17 September 2012 22:30, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On Sep 17, 2012, at 13:58 , Gez Lemon <g.lemon@webprofession.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Everyone,
>>> 
>>> I support the change proposal, as there is no other reliable method 
>>> that is supported today that does the same thing as longdesc.
>> 
>> The trouble is, longdesc is neither widely supported nor reliable today.  If it was, I suspect that we would not be having this discussion.
> 
> It is better supported and more reliable than no solution at all for 
> providing a long description for complex images.
> 

So your thesis is that we should stick with a poor solution, that works only in controlled environments (not the public internet), and with a limited number of UAs, not all, and for whcih the situation is not improving nor likely to, rather than do better?

"I'm sorry, I cannot give you a car because you already have a broken bicycle."  Pshaw, I say, I and many others have much higher aspirations.

On Sep 17, 2012, at 15:13 , John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> wrote:

> David Singer wrote:
>> 
>> The trouble is, longdesc is neither widely supported nor reliable 
>> today.  If it was, I suspect that we would not be having this 
>> discussion.
>> 
> 
> With due respect, that wholly depends on how you measure support and 
> reliability.
> 

A success is a success no matter how you measure it; indeed, given a careful measurement of limited spaces on both the UA and content side, yes, there are good patches.  I do not think that is not good enough.

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Tuesday, 18 September 2012 08:15:03 UTC