Re: Netflix claims that EME is a W3C specification

Andreas,

All of the three specifications are at an early stage in the process. We
were careful not to use the words "standard" or "recommendation".
"specification" is just a word for a technical document.

All three documents are being worked on in the W3C. There have been
decisions taken to do that work and a decision taken that this work is in
scope of the HTML WG. I know you do not like these decisions, but that is
the situation. The distinction between the specifications is that EME has
not advanced to the stage where the W3C is asking for review by the
community, the public and other technical organizations, that doesn't mean
the document does not exist in the W3C.

We think the fact that the work is being done in the W3C, rather than
behind closed doors, is a more important one than the formal status. We
want this work to be done openly and the W3C provides an excellent forum
for that. It provides opportunities for different stakeholders to
participate, including privacy and accessibility experts and people such as
yourself.

Anyone who is interested in the actual formal status of the work has only
to click the links we provided right in the blog post to discover the
official status.

Finally, the main subject of the blog post was the product announcement,
not the status of the specifications.

Based on the above I don't accept that what we posted is misleading or
inappropriate.

...Mark


On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Andreas Kuckartz <A.Kuckartz@ping.de>wrote:

> Glenn Adams:
> > and it is expected to be published as a FPWD once the current
> > bugs have been adequately addressed.
>
> Not all current bugs *can* be addressed adequately without preventing
> the publication as a First Public Working Draft at the same time. But I
> do not need and will not go into detail here.
>
> It is remarkable that the decision that there is *no* consensus to
> publish the document as an First Public Working Draft is completely
> ignored by the Netflix blog entry. In this context the claim that EME is
> a W3C specification amounts to a public misrepresentation of the state
> of affairs.
>
> But I am beginning to repeat myself and will stop that here.
>
> > To use the language of the W3C Process document [1],
> > EME is presently a Work in Progress and the HTML WG intends to
> > advance it to Recommendation.
> ...
> > [1] http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/
>
> It seems to be necessary to verify factual statements made by DRM
> proponents.
>
> That process document states in section 7.1:
>
> "The maturity levels 'Working Draft' and 'Working Group Note' represent
> the possible initial states of a technical report in the development
> process."
>
> Section 7.1.1 states:
>
> "A Working Draft is a document that W3C has published for review by the
> community, including W3C Members, the public, and other technical
> organizations."
>
> And section 7.4.1 defines that the "Document maturity level" of a "First
> Public Working Draft" is "Working Draft".
>
> In other words: EME has *not* yet reached one of the "initial states of
> a technical report in the development process".
>
> That process document also contains the word "specification", but *only*
> in the context of a "W3C Recommendation (REC)".
>
> > In conclusion, there is nothing inconsistent about referring to EME
> > as a "W3C specification".
>
> Thanks for another illustration of the methods used by DRM proponents.
>
> Cheers,
> Andreas
>
>