RE: What change could we make? (was Re: Letter on DRM in HTML)

piranna@gmail.com wrote:
>
> It would strength it, 

So then, you would support such a move? (yes or no question)


> but content owners would not trust it
> because it's open and don't use it, so we are in the same
> currently situation.

Not exactly, as it would provide an Open Source implementation that *could*
be used. Nobody - NOBODY - can force a publisher to use a specific tool or
Specification/Standard if it does not meet their needs. This holds true for
the W3C as well.


> In fact, if some content owners use it
> since some browsers only accept it as a format like it currently
> happens with <video> tag it would be considered a success because
> "someone" is using this open CDM the same way VP8 is a "success"
> instead of everybody using closed ones the same way they are using
> h264,

See my earlier comment. If your end-goal is to eliminate Premium Content
protection - period - then the vehicle for that goal is not the W3C, and
will never be the W3C. If your goal is to help craft an Open-Source friendly
solution that implementers can choose to use, and it meets all of the goals
of all members of the W3C (including the content creators/owners), then
stick around, because that is what the W3C does.


> but definitely this would became another corner stone for a
> (already) fragmented web, being the main victim the final consumers
> if they can't be able to see the content because they choosed a
> browser that can't be able to play it.

The W3C cannot force browsers to use *any* of their Recommendations. They
can (and do) make a strong case for why using common standards benefits the
web, and eventually by extension the browser developer's own user-base, but
browsers can do whatever they want: witness some of the browser extensions
to CSS (-webkit-mask-attachment anyone? Ref:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/-webkit-mask-attachment)


> Another alternative would be
> to enforce the usage of this open CDM both only allowing it on the
> spec or forcing content owners to offer at least a version of the
> content using it, but this would also go against the definition of
> open web, only that in another different direction.

Once again, the W3C are not the internet police - they are a Standards body.
They have an important, perhaps critical, role to play in guiding the
development of the web, but they do not define business rules or policies
for their membership, or for the wider world-wide-web, nor do they "enforce"
these Standards: they put them out there and implementers are free to use
them, or not. (Remember when the W3C was working on XHTML2? Great idea +
zero implementer support = useless standards work.) 

Until you are ready to accept this truism, you are hoping for outcomes that
cannot happen.

JF

Received on Tuesday, 25 June 2013 21:03:43 UTC