Re: CfC: to publish Encrypted Media Extensions specification as a First Public Working Draft (FPWD)) (was Re: On video formats)

On Thursday 2013-01-24 08:19 -0500, Philippe Le Hegaret wrote:
> 1. HTML5 does not require specific image, audio, caption, or video
> formats. It is format agnostic and there is a desire in the Working
> Group to keep it that way.

While there are certainly individuals in the working group who want
to keep it that way, I don't think there's anything close to working
group consensus to keep it that way.

There are certainly arguments on both sides.  From a technical
perspective, there's definitely value in having pieces be
orthogonal, and particularly in avoiding dependencies on a
particular version of a technology rather than the latest version of
a technology.  However, from a policy perspective any extension
point is a loophole that allows us to lose any or all of the
benefits of the W3C's process or other open standards processes,
such as having publicly available specifications that allow anyone
to implement the technology [1].  The existing extension points you
reference (image, audio, caption, and video formats) are used to
refer to existing technologies with publicly available
specifications.  The reason for particular concern in this case is
that there appears to be a significant risk that this will not be
the case for Content Decryption Modules (CDMs).

In other words, I support Robert O'Callahan's objection to the
publication of EME.

-David

[1] Also see item 4 in http://open-stand.org/principles/ which is
    endorsed by W3C at http://open-stand.org/affirmation/ .

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

Received on Thursday, 31 January 2013 20:17:49 UTC