Re: Formal Objection to Working Group Decision to publish Encrypted Media Extensions specification as a First Public Working Draft (FPWD)

John, I recommend you actually read what the EFF wrote. They tell it more
succintcly then I do.


On Thu, May 30, 2013 at 10:09 PM, John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> wrote:

> <non-technical post, with apologies>
>
> Andreas, Gaël, Florian,
>
> Just so that I have a clear understanding of what you are suggesting here:
>
> You, and the EFF, under the banner of "Freedom" and "Openness" are in fact
> attempting to BLOCK, to STOP COLD, a number of software partners from
> working - in the Open and under public scrutiny - on a technical
> specification at the W3C that can be used on the Web Platform. Never mind
> that this effort is being contributed freely, and it's trajectory path for
> Final Recommendation includes milestones such as community input and
> comment
> on its *technical* merits, an accessibility review by the PFWG, and a
> published call for Patent claims prior to standardization.
>
> Your stated reasoning appears to be that if you are "successful" you will
> have somehow stopped Digital Rights Management from being used on the web,
> or being supported by commercial browsers developed by privately held
> commercial companies today. The Web "MUST REMAIN FREE!!!" you rally. As an
> analogy, I see this as akin to stating that you support freedom of religion
> as long as that religion is based upon a form of Christianity - anyone who
> deviates from that myopic perspective is "wrong", misguided, or simply
> "greedy".
>
>
> In *my* Open Web, any group that produces a specification and then releases
> it to be used by others without any patent encumbrance is contributing to
> the Open Web Stack. And funny enough, that seems to be how the web works
> today. (In the words of TBL, the web succeeded because they didn't have to
> ask anyone's permission to do what they did. However now, apparently *this*
> particular work cannot proceed at the W3C because the EFF and FOSS
> supporters don't want to grant their permission. Ya, how does that work
> exactly?...)
>
> My Open Web runs using protocols such as TCP/IP
> (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc793.txt), HTTP
> (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt) and IPv4/IPv6
> (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2460.txt) - all developed at the Internet
> Engineering Task Force (IETF).
>
> On my Open Web authors create complex scripted web applications using
> JavaScript (an ECMA Standard -
> http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/5.1/), while others freely
> distribute PDFs (a 'closed' ISO standard today -
> http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html) to my browser, while
> others again exclusively use .mp4/MPEG 4 (also an ISO standard -
> http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=38538) with H.264
> encodings (an ITU Standard http://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.264 that has
> patent encumbrance) for the delivery of videos to my browser.
>
> Because, you see, my Open Web, the "web of standards", is not some
> monolithic effort policed and controlled by the W3C - yes, the W3C is a
> significant player in that space, and frankly to my mind their operating
> model is far superior to some of those other standards bodies I just
> referenced in terms of Openness and Community input/involvement. But to be
> crystal clear, they don't exclusively run this show - nobody does (a point
> that I believe eventually even the WHAT WG came to understand - at least
> most of them). That might seem messy, that might seem chaotic, but that is
> the reality, and the links that I have just provided are my proof.
>
> My question to you then is this: what happens if you *are* successful in
> stopping this effort at the W3C? Do you think that those who require this
> technology will simply pack up their tents and go home, accepting "defeat"?
>
> What is to stop them from going to any of the other standards bodies I just
> mentioned, or perhaps yet another Standards group (SMPTE -
> https://www.smpte.org - comes to mind, or a business consortium such as
> UltraViolet - www.uvvu.com/)? Or what if a private company like Google
> just
> says to heck with it, we will implement a standard internally because our
> business partners and business needs require one, and you can either use it
> or not - we don’t care? (Ref: http://www.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-whitepaper
> )
> If the content OWNERS of this entertainment media then believe that the
> "magic Google thing" meets their needs, and a browser like Chrome/Blink
> (along with say a partner like Microsoft) start implementing that solution,
> what then? Do you really think you will be any further ahead? I don't - in
> fact I think we will be in a worse situation than what appears to be
> emerging today, where consensus (not unanimity) and a collective input play
> a significant role in the specification development.
>
> You and your buddies can continue to wrap yourself in the warm and fuzzy
> feeling that is FOSS, and continue to pretend that "entertainment content"
> somehow contains an implied concept that once you license it, it is yours
> to
> use however you want, whenever you want, wherever you want and to heck with
> the rights of the Owners; that somehow "Game of Thrones" is just like Linux
> and Apache, but in the real world, in *my* Open Web world, openness means
> that anyone can use the gifts that TBL and others have given us to share
> content with the world, but under *our* terms, not the terms of a
> politically motivated group who think that ownership rights, and the right
> to control and monetize what you have invested in, should no longer exist.
> I
> don't prescribe to that, and neither do many others.
>
> So, good luck with your battle. Feel free to continue to believe that
> "Freedom of Religion is a global right, (as long as that religion is based
> upon a form of Christianity)" because honestly, that is exactly how your
> stance comes off to me.
>
> JF
>
> </non-technical post, with apologies>
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Andreas Kuckartz [mailto:A.Kuckartz@ping.de]
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 10:57 PM
> > To: Sam Ruby; timbl@w3.org
> > Cc: public-html-admin@w3.org; public-html-media@w3.org
> > Subject: Formal Objection to Working Group Decision to publish
> > Encrypted Media Extensions specification as a First Public Working
> > Draft (FPWD)
> >
> > This is a Formal Objection against the Working Group Decision to
> > publish
> > Encrypted Media Extensions specification as a First Public Working
> > Draft
> > (FPWD).
> >
> > EME is not compatible with the Open Web and can not be made compatible
> > with it.
> >
> > For simplicity I refer to the Formal Objection raised by the EFF
> > regarding the HTML WG Draft Charter:
> > https://www.eff.org/pages/drm/w3c-formal-objection-html-wg
> >
> > In addition to that I refer to these two issues:
> >
> > EME does not allow independent implementation, excluding open source
> > implementations.
> > https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=20967
> >
> > That issue was "resolved" by one of the authors of EME as an alleged
> > duplicate of another issue:
> >
> > EME should do more to encourage/ensure CDM-level interop
> > https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=20944
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Andreas
>
>
>
>