Re: Can accessing the device microphone and camera be added to HTML5?

On Sun, 2 May 2010, Jock Murphy wrote:
> On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:
> > On Thu, 29 Apr 2010, Fenton Travers wrote:
> > >
> > > Can accessing the device microphone and camera be added to HTML5?
> >
> > HTML5 is frozen to new additions
> 
> Really?

Yes.


> > That's what we're doing. How do you decide when to stop resolving 
> > bugs? Would you just leave problems in the spec unfixed after a bit?
> 
> No but just like in software that is why we have minor version numbers

With traditional software you need to freeze a version at some point 
because that code has to run on the end user machine.

However, with a Web standard, there's no need to do that. It can be like a 
wikipedia article, or a Web application -- there's no need for versioning. 
We could easily just have "HTML".


> > I think a better solution would be to have a continuous process of 
> > adding features and fixing bugs, with no frozen versions. What's the 
> > point of a cycle? It doesn't match any of the browser vendors, it 
> > doesn't match the authoring community, so why bother? It's just 
> > artificial.
> 
> When one says that they are conforming to a standard, then you have to 
> know what version of the standard you are talking about.

Why does one have to say that one is conforming to a standard?


> So a world where HTML 5.0 (if you will) is forever open doesn't allow 
> that.  One where there is HTML 5.1, and then 5.2 in 12-18 months, etc 
> does allow for that.

Sure. You can just say "I use HTML" and leave it at that.


> > This was in a past version of HTML5, but was removed due to lack of 
> > implementor interest.
> 
> And that is a shame, but it doesn't mean it isn't important, or needed.

Indeed, but there's no point specifying something that doesn't get 
implemented. :-)


> > >    - The ability to access nonfile like things (the address book for 
> > > example
> >
> > Why does this need anything from the browser?
>
> Because browsers exist on more things than just conventional computers.  
> As we move forward we will be using a lot of devices that don't have 
> conventional filesystems, but being able to say upload a contact into a 
> webapp is important.

I don't see why a device would have a contact locally any more or less 
than a traditional computer would. Isn't it more likely the contact will 
be online somewhere?

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Monday, 3 May 2010 01:33:53 UTC