Re: Encrypted Media proposal: Summary of the discussion so far

On Mar 13, 2012, at 4:54 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com> wrote:
>> On Mar 13, 2012, at 3:28 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>>> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 3:25 PM, Mark Watson <watsonm@netflix.com> wrote:
>>>> Again, we should not be aiming to restrict the web to only those applications based on a purely FOSS stack.
>>> 
>>> That is, in fact, precisely what I and several other important
>>> implementors on this list are aiming for.
>> 
>> You can aim for whatever you like. I'm saying W3C should not adopt this as its aim because:
>> 1) It's impossible - the web is whatever users and the companies they patronize decide it is
>> 2) It's counterproductive to try and restrict innovation, by restricting the available technologies to those decided by a some subset of developers
> 
> Non-FOSS technologies can't be implemented by some of the major
> browsers that implement HTML.  Nor can they be implemented by some of
> the OSes that those browsers want to be able to run on.
> 
> 
>>>  Anything less than that is
>>> insulting to our users that choose to use a purely FOSS stack, which
>>> we recognize as a valid and legitimate choice.
>> 
>> Or maybe it's insulting to users to claim that a whole swath of services they enjoy today on the web should not be there ?
> 
> That's a different set of users.

Ok, so we have to *balance* the needs of different sets of users.

When a user chooses to use a purely FOSS stack they *choose* to forego those services which require non-FOSS capabilities. We should indeed try to maximize the set of services supported by pure FOSS stacks - to make that choice as painless as possible. But that is different from saying that services which use non-FOSS technologies should not be on the web. 

> 
> As well, please don't put false words in my mouth.

I don't believe I did, but apologies if I gave that impression. My comments above were based on the part where I said we should not 'restrict the web to only those applications based on a purely FOSS stack' and you said this was 'precisely what [you] are aiming for'.

>  The existing
> non-FOSS stuff that's more-or-less required in the web stack is a pain
> we've already accepted and paid for.  It would be nice to avoid adding
> *more* of it.

We could argue about that, but that's not the point. This proposal *reduces* the amount of non-FOSS stuff: instead of huge plug-ins supporting who-knows-what, duplicative of HTML, we're trying to draw a line around the minimal part that, for better or worse, currently has to be non-FOSS. And while we do it we can enable independent evolution of those parts, in the directions that you and others are advocating. If you're objective is to have maximal use of FOSS capabilities, you should be *in favor* of this proposal!

…Mark




> 
> ~TJ
>

Received on Wednesday, 14 March 2012 01:13:15 UTC