Re: Accessibility and EME (was RE: Is EME usable regardless of the software/hardware I use ?)

> The "accessibility" work happens after the decryption happens, and if it
> can
> be rendered in the browser, it can be exposed to AT. Our questions about
> that at the Face-2-Face were expressly looking at the edge-cases and
> scenarios where this *might* be a problem. No significant problems
> emerged
> during those discussions, so from an accessibility perspective, keep
> working
> on what you are working on, and come back when you reach the next step.
> That
> next step is to have a 'working' spec that implementations can be built
> against, and then like any other technology development, lets test,
> feedback, iterate, and get it done right - which includes the
> accessibility
> piece.

I think, on that basis, that I'm just going to cease worrying about
this.  You - meaning those at the W3C involved in accessibility - are
clearly completely on top of this issue.

> Convince
> me that this level of accessibility engagement would happen outside of
> the
> W3C - I've simply never seen it, and can find little-to-no proof of it
> ever
> happening elsewhere. (With no disrespect to other web-standards bodies -
> IETF for example - I don't think they have this level of accessibility
> engagement in any of their work, but happy to be proven wrong).

I'm 100% that you're right on this point.  No convincing necessary or
possible there.

> It's not about satisfying me, it's about respecting the real barriers
> that
> Persons With Disabilities (PWD) face every day, in life and on the web.
> It's
> about not using them, and their conditions, to drive a political agenda.

I genuinely believed that any DRM system would represent a step
backwards for accessibility tools, because that's what I'd observed in
the past.  I was simply unaware of the work that you and others at the
W3C have been doing to improve the situation as far as EME is concerned. 

Accessibility looks like a win for EME, not a loss as I'd claimed it
would be.

> Geography and internationalization? There is a group inside of the W3C
> that can provide input and guidance there. 

Correct me if I'm wrong (you've been good at that so far ;) ) but my
understanding is that a key feature of DRM systems, including those
planned for interop with EME, is geographical distinction (e.g. region
restrictions on DVDs).  This doesn't seem to be a guidance point, so
much as an intentional anti-feature in most DRM systems.

> Hardware and software? The browsers
> *are* the software, and increasingly, the OS too.

Except that the purpose of EME is to interoperate with native binaries. 
If the DRM systems were implemented in pure Javascript, then the
'browser is the OS' argument would be true - and those DRM systems would
be trivial to break.

Therefore the full-stack solution, including the CDMs, is very much tied
to specific architectures, hardware and software.

> Making this work inside of "Open Source" is only
> politically difficult, not technologically so. We need to respect that
> thinking, but we cannot let it be the only way of thinking.

It's technologically impossible, given the constraint that content
providers want DRM systems that are not trivial to break.  An
open-source CDM is technologically equivalent to no DRM at all.

Of course, you could argue that that constraint is political, &
therefore the issue of open-source implementations is political too. 
But, at its heart lies a technological issue.

-- 
Duncan Bayne
ph: +61 420817082 | web: http://duncan-bayne.github.com/ | skype:
duncan_bayne

I usually check my mail every 24 - 48 hours.  If there's something
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Received on Thursday, 13 June 2013 05:09:51 UTC