Re: WebVTT Spec Question

On Thu, 18 Apr 2013, Edward O'Connor wrote:
> 
> HTML is a really interesting example here. Consider the first pass at 
> embedding Creative Commons license metadata: they put RDF/XML islands 
> inside HTML comments. That was truly disastrous. The current solution, 
> to link to the CC license with <a rel=license href=...>, is far more 
> reasonable and discoverable.
> 
> So, on the one hand, I agree with Ian that the experience we've had in 
> HTML has been pretty bad. But the experience we had in embedding this 
> kind of metadata in comments was much, much worse. I recommend doing 
> something lightweight à la HTML's rel="" registry, and if we ever 
> figure out how to address this problem in a better way on the platform, 
> switch to whatever that turns out to be at that time.

The problem here is that the metadata in question is not a proprietary 
private-use extension, it's an extension to the language proper intended 
for broad use. And the way to do that is to extend the language, not stuff 
it in ill-shaped metadata fields. So for example, if this were to be added 
to WebVTT, you'd probably want to just create a new block type for the URL 
to the license, as in:

   LICENSE http://www.example.com/licenses/msdl.html

No need for a generic metadata solution for this.

(The other mistake that Creative Commons made in their initial solution 
here was to use RDF, and to try to stuff too much data in at once. When 
all you need is a URL to solve all the problems, RDF/XML data islands with 
multiple fields are obviously serious overkill.)

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