Re: Metadata in the VTT file header (bug 15851), use cases (and a need to close this)

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012, David Singer wrote:
> 
> You're assuming a browser embedding; we envisage VTT used in a whole 
> bunch of scenarios and locations.

I think this may be the source of many of the disagreements we have.

Personally I think of WebVTT as part of HTML. It's a Web technology, 
primarily for browsers. It's ok if it's used elsewhere, just like if it's 
ok for CSS or JS to be used elsewhere, but all such uses are secondary to 
the use in a browser, and where the goals conflict, the browser case 
_always_ wins. This includes the issue of simplicity; if a feature is only 
useful outside browsers and adding it makes the language more than 
trivially more complicated, then we shouldn't add it.

Trying to design one technology for multiple use cases is how you end up 
with bad technologies. I don't think we should do that. There are plenty 
of existing subtitle formats for other spaces. There's no need for us to 
warp WebVTT into a one-size-fits-all format.

We started with SRT, and we made a Web-optimised variant called WebSRT. It 
was called _Web_SRT because it's for the Web. This remains the case. We 
should not lose sight of this.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Wednesday, 12 September 2012 19:36:54 UTC