Re: On the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) document

On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 9:10 AM, Philippe Le Hegaret <plh@w3.org> wrote:
> 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].

This answer an *extremely* narrow form of the objections in this vein,
which I don't think anyone ever actually stated.

Nobody, to my recollection, has questioned whether DRM is within the
scope of the HTMLWG itself.  Assuming it was acceptable to work on at
all, it seems reasonable for such work to take place in the HTMLWG.  I
doubt there would be much objection to that from anyone, unless they
happened to have a more specific WG already around for such things.

The objections from multiple people are that this kind of work is not
in scope *for the W3C itself*.  We produce specifications for the Open
Web, with the goal of helping ensure interoperable implementations
that make our technologies robust and easy to use for authors and
users.  The EME spec appears to violate this in spirit, and in
specifics when you actually get the editors to nail those down (as
they're extremely unspecific in the draft itself).

I find this response to be a deeply unsatisfying answer to the
objections that have been raised by members of this group, and believe
it does not address anyone's stated or implied concerns.

Please pursue the more general question, which *has* been explicitly
raised by multiple members of this group, as to how working on DRM
(with all the details that have been admitted by the editors, such as
the near-certainty that DRM modules will be non-interoperable across
platforms and browsers, and that some platforms will likely never
receive any useful DRM modules) is an appropriate activity for the W3C
itself to be permitting and endorsing as within its remit.

~TJ

Received on Saturday, 9 February 2013 16:37:27 UTC