Re: Multipart response support

Henrik Dvergsdal said:
>
>> Do you mean pre-loading as in 'early asynchronous' loading?
>> I think this should be left to UA's, who seem to be doing an ok job
>> at doing this and trying to reduce FOUC problems.
>
> By careful preloading through multipart responses, authors will not
> only be able to reduce these problems, they can eliminate them
> completely. Why limit ourselves to the next best solution?

Image loading is currently asynchronous.  That means that I don't have to
wait for image preload a.jpg, b.jpg, and c.jpg before I can look at the
content of the page.  Further, if I'm browsing on my mobile phone that is
slow and costs per kilobyte, my phone would have to download all the
images before it can refrain from showing me the images (unless there is
support for this in all the major web servers to request only the content
part, which would undo any "preloading" "benefits")

>> DRM should not be encouraged, let alone by an html spec.
>
> This is a quite modest form of DRM. Otherwise I think discussions
> about pros and cons of DRM belongs elsewhere.
>
>> It would also be mostly a waste of time anyway, screen grabbing
>> would remain a way to get the picture.
>
> Well, by putting images in a multipart response, authors will at   least
> prohibit links directly into those images at their site. There   are
> circumstances where this is quite useful.

If someone can't directly link to the image and they want to, they will
right click it and Save File As.  Then they will upload it to Flickr and
link to it there.  All you've done is make them take one extra step that
many people do anyway.  If they link directly to your image, you still
have control over the image.  If they download it, you've lost control of
it.

If all you want to do is prevent direct links, use mod_rewrite.[1]  Or
make a clever script that requires some form of date matching.

> I also think raising the barriers towards stealing and making it more
> explicit can be a good thing. Just because there are ways of working
> around such measures doesn't mean they are completely useless.

The problem is that this is so easily worked around.  I can put a sign up
that says "Please don't walk in my yard" but that isn't going to prevent
anyone from doing it.  Further, it's going to make some people do it just
because I don't want them to.  The level of "DRM" in a multi-part message
is so low it is nonexistent and can be achieved through other means (e.g.
mod_rewrite).

In the end, I agree with Lachlan.  This isn't a problem for HTML WG to solve.

[1] http://www.bedford.net/teep/farfie2.htm

-- 
Robert <http://robertdot.org>

Received on Wednesday, 28 March 2007 16:20:46 UTC