is OBJECT broken? if so by whom & what can be done?

aloha, chris!

i'm sure that those who have strong opinions on the matter of 
who's responsible for "breaking" OBJECT will respond to you, but
here are just a few references to "IE" or "microsoft" "breaking"
OBJECT, gleaned from the public-html archive using the search 
terms: "object" "broken" "microsoft" returned 44 hits.

the larger issue is that it has been a constant refrain on 
public-html that if OBJECT weren't "broken" it could be used 
instead of media specific elements such as VIDEO, etc., but 
that pre-IE7 versions of IE would break OBJECT as a multi-modal
fallback mechanism for various types of media-specific 
formats/files...

i'm not singling anyone out (or intentionally leaving anyone out), 
on the list below, but simply attempting to put the concept, 
widely held by members of the HTML WG, into context...

1) James Graham, Re: LONGDESC some current problems and a proposed 
solution added to the wiki
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Jul/0129.html

2) Jeff Schiller, A Concrete Example for the HTML Versioning Debate:
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/1107.html

3) David P. Dailey, Eolas vs. <object>
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/1098.html

4) Simon Peiters, Re: Versioning and html[5]
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/0671.html

5) Sam Ruby (IBM)
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Aug/0233.html

6) Sander Tekelenberg (general reference to object as implemented)
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Jul/1051.html

7) reference to MSIE's "halfway support" for OBJECT
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Jul/1052.html

8) Lachlan Hunt (general reference to object as implemented)
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Jul/1053.html

9) Robert Burns  (general reference to object as implemented)
* http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Jul/1056.html

so, those who think OBJECT is irretrevably broken, stand up and 
have your say...

gregory.

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             Gregory J. Rosmaita, oedipus@hicom.net
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---------- Original Message -----------
From: Chris Wilson <Chris.Wilson@microsoft.com>
To: "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <oedipus@hicom.net>, HTML Working Group <public-
html@w3.org>, "wai-xtech@w3.org" <wai-xtech@w3.org>, scott lewis 
<sfl@scotfl.ca>
Sent: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:01:40 -0700
Subject: RE: Baby Steps or Backwards Steps?

> Gregory J. Rosmaita wrote:
> >then why don't those who complain about microsoft having "broken"
> >object formally ask the microsoft Advisory Council rep to make
> >MSIE standards compliant, so that we could use OBJECT and avoid
> >the code bloat of VIDEO, AUDIO, etc. --
> 
> Could someone describe the exact issue, and tell me if it is 
> still present in IE7?  I know we still don't deal with 404 
> errors properly, but OBJECT fallback was dramatically improved 
> in IE7.
> 
> -Chris
------- End of Original Message -------

Received on Monday, 20 August 2007 23:32:34 UTC