“what if” question (was Re: Netflix HTML5 player in IE 11 on Windows 8.1)

Am Wed, 10 Jul 2013 21:52:15 -0700
schrieb "John Foliot" <john@foliot.ca>:

> Norbert Bollow wrote:
> > 
> > What if the kind of architecture that is pursued in the EME spec is
> > in fact the best possible solution to the stated requirement,
> 
> It is technology, not civil rights law. 
> 
> In my opinion, if the technology is sound, well constructed, and the
> emergent specification is clear, implementable, Patent-free, and has
> at least 2 independent implementations, then it meets the criteria of
> a technical standard that can become a W3C Recommendation, and should
> do so.
> 
> 
> > but it is
> > still very bad because it is fundamentally incompatible with
> > building an open web and ICT systems that provide a reasonable
> > environment for the protection of human rights?
> 
> Your definition of "bad" here is neither universally accepted, nor is
> it a technical impediment to implementation - it is a subjective
> interpretation based upon your current political thinking, and
> perhaps your geographic location today. I am neither affected by, nor
> governed by, Swiss law. I am a Canadian citizen living in the United
> States, and so for the most part I am not even affected by Canadian
> law (despite my citizenship) - I live under US law

Maybe you missed the fact that I am talking there not about my personal
political views, nor about Swiss law, nor any other particular national
law, but about the internationally accepted human rights, which all
governments and all legal systems are supposed to respect and
implement. That includes the US government and the US legal system -
even if they're currently not doing a particularly good job at that.

Also please note that I did not assert the claim “EME is fundamentally
incompatible with building an open web and ICT systems that provide a
reasonable environment for the protection of human rights”.

At the current stage I'm explicitly asking a “what if” question. What
if that is the case? Would W3C consider that a valid reason to reject
the spec, or not?

This is not a mere rhetorical question, but from my perspective a really
important question to which I would like to know the answer.

Greetings,
Norbert
FreedomHTML.org

Received on Thursday, 11 July 2013 22:19:21 UTC