RE: Danger of DRM technologies stack

Fred Andrews wrote:
> > 
> > Fred, do you even understand how the W3C works? From your statements
above I
> > am seriously concerned that you do not.
> >
> Please quit the personal insults.
>
> The W3C would appear to be sending a very mixed and confusing message to
the
> public regarding its processes and what it stands for.

Fred, this is not a personal insult, it is a legitimate question. Do you
truly understand the W3C Process?  Have you read the W3C Process Document on
how W3C Recommendations evolve? If you had, you would have come across the
following quote:

	"Dissenters cannot stop a group's work simply by saying that they
cannot live with a decision."

http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#Consensus 

Here's more:

	"In the W3C process, an individual may register a Formal Objection
to a decision. A Formal Objection to a group decision is one that the
reviewer requests that the Director consider as part of evaluating the
related decision (e.g., in response to a request to advance a technical
report). Note: In this document, the term "Formal Objection" is used to
emphasize this process implication: Formal Objections receive Director
consideration. The word "objection" used alone has ordinary English
connotations.

	An individual who registers a Formal Objection should cite technical
arguments and propose changes that would remove the Formal Objection; these
proposals may be vague or incomplete. Formal Objections that do not provide
substantive arguments or rationale are unlikely to receive serious
consideration by the Director."

I draw your attention to the second paragraph above, and specifically "...a
Formal Objection should cite technical arguments..." - not philosophical
arguments, but real Technical issues, since the W3C is not a philosophy
club, it is a Technical Standards organization.



> 
> The EME is an anti-feature.  The proponents can only succeed by blocking
> 'features'.
>
> Let's assume we accept that 'You cannot just "ignore" the use-cases', then
it
> would be equally true that the proponents of the EME can not ignore
use-cases
> such as saving content etc.

Correct, and content that you can legally "save" should be save-able. 

Content however that is leased to you on a per-consumption basis, and that
you access contractually with those specific terms, should not be
"save-able", because that was not part of the contract you entered into.
That is the use-case: protecting the owners rights to content that they
choose not to give away, but to lease, either as a direct 1-to-1 lease, or
as part of a subscription model that provides controlled access to the
content. We all get that this upsets you, but it is legal, reasonable and
technically achievable. (It is in many ways no different that SAS - Software
As a Service - in that you get to use the digital content, but you don't
*own* it. I suppose you also consider that to be wrong too.)


> Jeff has already stated that anyone is free to join the working group,
> and there are 10000+ people who will likely do so to vote this down -
sorry
> you do not have the numbers.  If the W3C refuses the accept these votes
> then it should stop claiming it represents the open web community.

The W3C *contributes* to the open web, but it is not "The Open Web". 

*I* am also a member of the Open Web community (heck, I organize an annual
event called Open Web Camp - a *free* web developers conference), but I
categorically reject your zealot stance as being impractical, naïve, and
harmful to the larger ecosystem that is the open web: without EME the only
other way of delivering this type of content to end users is the walled-off
"app-store" model, which is significantly more harmful to the open web in my
opinion. 

Part of the W3C's Mission is to also facilitate commerce over the web, and
commerce, by its very nature, is a for-profit endeavor. Establishing an open
standard that facilitates commerce is thus very much in scope for the W3C
despite what *you* think the W3C stands for.

As for your 10's of thousands of votes, I once again point to the W3C
Process document:

	"3.4 Votes

	A group SHOULD only conduct a vote to resolve a substantive issue
after the Chair has determined that all available means of reaching
consensus through *technical* discussion and compromise have failed...
[emphasis mine]

	In order to vote to resolve a substantive issue, an individual MUST
be a group participant in Good Standing. Each organization represented in
the group MUST have *at most one vote*, even when the organization is
represented by several participants in the group (including Invited
Experts)... [emphasis mine]

	Unless the charter states otherwise, Invited Experts MAY vote."

That final sentence is important Fred - it states that Invited Experts MAY
(RFC 2119) vote, but if it appears that gerrymandering is underfoot the
Chairs might also rule that either a) those new Invited Experts are all
members of the same organization (vote stacking) and thus afforded 1 vote,
or that b) in this case Invited Experts cannot vote, that voting will be
limited to member organizations only. 

I'm not saying that this is what WILL happen, but either scenario is both
possible, and plausible, especially if it appears that there are attempts to
"game the vote". This is not a stupid organization Fred. 

 
> I agree that the EME is politics.  The open web community does not endorse
it
> and does not want it passed off as the work of the open web community.  

Once again, be very careful who you claim to speak for, as I do not share
the same extremist views as you.


> Just take it elsewhere to avoid confusing the public and misrepresenting
us. 

Huh??? Part of the W3C's Mission is to develop Open STANDARDS, not "the open
web == FOSS". If you choose to believe otherwise however I cannot stop you
and others from doing so.
(Ref: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission) 


> The least that the W3C could do is to not publish it as part of the HTML
> working group, and to clearly document it as a politically and
commercially
> driven publication. 

Double HUH??? All standards are politically and commercially driven.  The
entire FOSS concept is, at its heart, a "commercially driven" decision, by
using and sharing via *Free License* software - the argument being that
value should be attached to the outcome produced by tools, and not from the
tools themselves. One need only point to Red Hat as an organization that
uses one of the most public and well known Open Source projects out there
(Linux) and then charging for "services" clustered around that tool.


> It should not be going though public CfCs etc as an open
> web spec because this would have a good chance of misleading the public. 

...and clearly you have already been mislead: mislead on how the W3C works,
why it exists in the first place, and on the means and methods of affecting
change within the Consortium. For that I am truly sad, but it does not
change the fact that you appear to me to be very misinformed about a lot of
the Process under which this debate keeps circling around.


> The
> proponents should never be in a position to be able to claim that the EME
is
> in any way associated with the open web community.

They don't, they won't. It will clearly be an optional W3C Recommendation as
all W3C Recommendations are (if and when it reaches that point), produced as
an Open Standard, and free to be taken up and used (or not) by anyone who so
chooses. At no time however will anyone ever be "forced" to use, deploy, or
support EME - that's another truism you simply cannot avoid.


> This is not relevant to the matter of the EME being worked on at the W3C
> in parallel with open web technology.

Of course it is Fred. It is those businesses, who have gathered at the W3C,
who have paid their yearly membership that funds the work of the W3C, and
supplied engineers to work on shared goals, who care about this work. This
is not a religious order, it is a standards organization supported by
academia, governments, and yes, business. If members of this Consortium wish
to work together on a shared standard, then it becomes very relevant. 

The fact that members of the general public have concerns and hesitations
around a particular aspect of this work is also relevant, but it is not (nor
should it be) enough to stop this work: the W3C provides the forum to
surface those concerns, and to hear them out and weigh their merits, in an
effort to *improve* the Standard, not scuttle it. Nothing more, but nothing
less: stamping your feet and demanding more will not change any of these
facts.

Fred, I urge you to spend some real time reading the W3C Process document,
you might find that what you believe today is not how things really work.

Sincerely,

JF

Received on Tuesday, 26 November 2013 07:47:24 UTC