Re: What is the "open web" ?

On 6/2/2013 1:43 PM, Andreas Kuckartz wrote:
> Mark Watson:
>> I think we all agree that W3C recommendations must be implementable,
>> royalty-free, in open source software.
> +1
>
>> Some would extend this to "Free Open Source Software".
> I am not sure how this is meant. The choice of Open Source licenses used
> by an Open Source implementation should not be restricted by a W3C
> recommendation directly or indirectly.

The distinction between FOSS and general open source licenses came up 
several weeks ago on this mailing list.

I don't believe that we've ever formulated a formal policy that W3C 
Recommendations must be implementable in open source, but it is 
certainly a practice that we have followed assiduously for several years 
and continue to do so.

While we have the practice of only providing Recommendations that are 
implementable in open source, we haven't said that each Recommendation 
must be implementable in every open source license that's out there.  
Hence we've not said that every Recommendation must be implementable in 
(e.g.) GPL.

When this last came up, we searched to see whether there was some 
documentation that asserted such a policy (that everything must be 
implemented in GPL).  We certainly saw mailing list input that 
encouraged us to take certain policies to be consistent with GPL (e.g. 
patent policy, HTML document license) - but not a policy about GPL per se.

That's not to take a position on whether we should change our policy to 
insist that RECs be implementable in every open source license. But that 
would be a new policy for W3C.

>
>> It's also been said that "open web" refers to an ambition that the
>> entire software stack on which the web platform rests be
>> implementable in FOSS software. That is, not just that W3C
>> specifications should be implementable
>> in FOSS, but that the underlying capabilities the web platform
>> exposes should meet the same requirement.
> +1
>
>> Examples include Geolocation and WebGL. Whilst it is possible to
>> implement both of these in open source software, you basically
>> need proprietary > hardware (and the proprietary software drivers
>> to go with it) to offer a performant capability to applications
>> (GPS and a graphics card, respectively).
> I do not agree. Neither Geolocation nor WebGL "basically" require closed
> source drivers.
>
>> You could also include some video codecs, though here the
>> issue is just the royalty-free part rather than the open source part.
> The HTML5 video tag is usable with WebM/VP8.
>
> It is a problem that H.264 is patent encumbered and I am convinced that
> one reason why some closed source web browsers belonging to proprietary
> operating systems implement only the second format and not the first one
> is exactly this.
>
>> At the other end, if there was only a single
>> example of a platform which did not support a given capability,
>> would that be ok ?
> It would a problem if it is impossible to implement that capability
> using an Open Source license chosen by the implementer.
>
> These documents might be relevant for this discussion:
>
> Debian Social Contract and Debian Free Software Guidelines
> http://www.debian.org/social_contract.en.html
>
> Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" to be released with completely free Linux Kernel
> December 15th, 2010
> http://www.debian.org/News/2010/20101215.en.html
>
> Cheers,
> Andreas
>

Received on Monday, 3 June 2013 11:04:19 UTC