Re: Encrypted Media proposal (was RE: ISSUE-179: av_param - Chairs Solicit Alternate Proposals or Counter-Proposals)

On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 9:42 AM, Glenn Adams <glenn@skynav.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 9:56 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> As argued multiple times, it would be a disservice to the web platform
> >> as a whole to bake closed-source royalty-encumbered technology into
> >> HTML.
> >
> > And who is proposing doing this? Nobody. Nobody is proposing requiring a
> > specific encumbered CDM just as nobody is proposing a specific encumbered
> > A/V codec. Please stop making claims that are patently untrue.
>
> Sigh.  It's not untrue.  As Mark Watson has admitted, the CDMs that
> Netflix *actually expects to be able to use* are closed-source and/or
> royalty-encumbered.  I expect other video distributors to be similar.
>

Just because Netflix, or Cox, or Comcast, or any commercial video provider
would make use of non-RF CDMs does not mean those technologies are "baked
... into HTML".

Many users employ Flash, but it isn't baked into HTML. This is a choice for
authors and browser manufacturers. If you as a browser vendor don't want to
support a means to make use of Flash or make use of a non-RF CDM, then feel
free to do so. That's your choice. But don't pretend that you have the
right to make that choice for others.


> Unless you have evidence that a sufficiently large marketshare of
> video distributors are actually planning to use an open-source
> royalty-free CDM like ClearKey, we must treat the CDM section of the
> spec as being poisonous.
>

No we don't. The only poison I see here is the form of technological
fascism you appear to advocate. If you wish to create a sandbox in which
only content authors and browser vendors mutually agree that only RF
technologies are used, then feel free to do so, but don't mistake the Real
Web as that sandbox. The Real Web serves the real world which includes both
free and commercial content and services, and the real world includes and
makes use of non-RF technologies to get its job done. Perhaps you can call
your sandbox the "Open Web", which may forever remain a subset of the Real
Web.

W3C technologies and specifications should be able to be employed wherever
suitable. They should not come with a legal notice: "W3C Technologies Shall
Not be Used outside of the Open Web".

If you want to conduct a campaign to make the entire Real Web the same as
the Open Web, then feel free to do so, but let's not use this forum or this
thread to conduct that fight. It is a distraction and time sink for those
of us actually trying to use the Real Web.