Re: Netflix HTML5 player in IE 11 on Windows 8.1

On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 12:19 PM, Nikos Roussos <
comzeradd@mozilla-community.org> wrote:

> On Mon, 2013-07-08 at 08:55 -0700, Mark Watson wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 4:50 AM, Nikos Roussos
> > <comzeradd@mozilla-community.org> wrote:
> >         On Sat, 2013-07-06 at 13:50 -0700, John Foliot wrote:
> >         > Nikos Roussos wrote:
> >         > >
> >         > > Excluding Free Software users is also a technical flaw.
> >         >
> >         > No, it is a decision taken by some users to not use software
> >         that does not meet their expectations, for whatever reasons
> >         they deem the software unsuitable. The software *does* work,
> >         just not in the way you want it to work. That's a
> >         philosophical stance, not a technical limitation or flaw.
> >         Software solutions that do not meet philosophical requirements
> >         are not by extension technically flawed, only (at best)
> >         philosophically so.
> >
> >
> >         No, it is a technological flow because excluding Free Software
> >         users you
> >         lose interoperability, another W3C's principle that
> >         contradicts with
> >         EME.
> >
> >
> > Only we don't _have_ interoperability for this content with Free
> > Software platforms today. We can't lose something we don't have.
>
> Today though the current "solutions" are not W3C standards.
>

Right, and neither the current solutions nor W3C standards support delivery
of this content to Free Software platforms, so, as I said, we do not lose
anything here, we just don't gain anything on this aspect either.


>
>
> > The most you can say is that this proposal doesn't solve the problem
> > of making this content available to Free Software platforms. But this
> > is not something the W3C _can_ solve and it's definitely not a
> > technical problem (all solutions I can see involve either content
> > providers changing their license terms or Free Software users changing
> > their principled stance against proprietary code, neither of which are
> > technical solutions. A problem which has no conceivable technical
> > solution cannot be described as a technical problem).
>
> It's both technological and philosophical issue. W3C's principles, thus
> its mission, are mostly philosophical and the technical standards should
> align with these.
>
> So we are not here to discuss just the technical design of the EME
> proposal, but its philosophical contradiction to Open Web principles
>

I was responding to your assertion that this was a technical issue. It
seems you agree it is philosophical now.


>
>
> >         > > >
> >         > > > You will have succeeded in neutering the W3C.
> >         > >
> >         > > We agree that this would have an impact on W3C's future,
> >         but we read
> >         > > this very differently
> >         > > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-
> >         > > restrictedmedia/2013Jun/0293.html
> >         >
> >         > In that posting, you wrote:
> >         >
> >         >       "It's safe to say that there is a consensus among
> >         those who object to
> >         > EME, that we believe it contradicts with Open Web principles
> >         and
> >         > therefore W3C's mission. If EME gets approved the most
> >         important thing
> >         > we'll lose is W3C."
> >         >
> >
> >         > I won't lose the W3C, neither will anyone else: the W3C will
> >         continue to exist, (...).
> >
> >         Of course it will continue to exist. But it would be
> >         irrelevant in the
> >         Open Web world.
> >
> >
> >
> > The purpose of the W3C is to make the web better. Are you saying that
> > if the W3C chooses to make one part of the web better (the part
> > involving protected content) then its ability to make other parts of
> > the web better suddenly vanishes ? How so ?
>
> I understand your point, but it's based on the assumption that it does
> make a part of the web better. I don't share the same point of view.
>

So, this is something we can discuss. I explained in another mail some
reasons why I think EME can make things better. Could you respond to those
points ?

And I'll rephrase my question: Are you saying that if W3C chooses to work
on the part of the web involving protected content (and either succeeds or
not in making that part better), that its ability to make other parts of
the web better suddenly vanishes ? How so ?

Furthermore, I'm still interested, hypothetically, to know whether if you
were convinced that EME did indeed make part of the web better in some way,
would you still be opposed to W3C working on it ? Why ?

...Mark