Re: Standards Making 101

RE: "The principle of standards is that whatever technology introduced is
uniform"

In the spirit of "Standards Making 101", there's more to it than that:
"Code of Good Practice for the Preparation, Adoption and Application of
Standards"
http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/17-tbt_e.htm#annexIII
(This is Annex 3 to the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade)

RE: "to allow anyone to publish"

"to allow" & "anyone to publish" >> Those are both politically-charged
concepts, surely.

In this web payments community group our effort is "to enable anyone to pay
anyone else online". But we don't yet know if that will be "allowed" in all
jurisdictions. Some of us are working on the components to permit choice of
vehicle currency, although we reallty don't know if that will be allowed,
as some jurisdictions have laws requiring use of the national currency, or
the counterparty's currency, but not a third party currency. Others on this
list work on various autonomous crypto-units of account, and we're in the
midst of finding out what will be allowed and what will not be allowed --
bitcoin being the focus of attention presently.

RE: "It's just technology."

After Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440, it became
easier for people to disseminate heretical and seditious works, challenging
both church and state. In order to control what was being said, Henry VIII
of England invoked a royal prerogative in 1538 to establish printing
patents as a form of censorship. By a royal charter in 1557, the
Stationers’ Company was created by the British Crown to oversee a guild
system in which the right to print a book was limited to members of the
guild, who were the printers and sellers of books, not the authors.
Patent-free printing presses were not "allowed". Building a patent-free
printing press was thus made to be both illegal and, was surely then, a
political act of civil disobedience, rather like Mahatma Gandhi's drying of
some seawater to make salt. And rather like writing a method for stripping
DRM from a device you just bought and paid for and think you own.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/how-to-strip-drm-from-kindle-e-books-and-others/


RE; " If you dont want to see DRM in all browsers, then persuade at least
one browser manufacturer not to add it. "

The problem is one of market confusion when an otherwise open standard
provides for unique vendor-specific functionality, while still labelling
that as "standard-compliant".

Joseph



On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 8:09 PM, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>
> On 8 October 2013 00:21, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
>
>> Kingsley, At risk of taking a web-payments thread off-topic, let me reply
>> very briefly:
>>
>> RE: "echoing a view that has zilch to do with architecture and everything
>> to do with philosophical and political views"
>>
>> 1. The very idea of this community working on a P2P web payments
>> architecture is intrinsically political, and is probably driven by variety
>> of philosophies that find common cause in such a result.
>>
>
> Technology is sometimes a political statement, but it need not always be.
> It's just technology.  For example, the premise of the web of documents,
> was to allow anyone to publish (valuable) content over distance, with a low
> barrier to entry.  What you use that technology for *may* be a political
> statement.  But then again, it may just be technology.  The fax machine is
> sometimes credited as an instrument in the fall of communism, but the fax
> machine, itself, is apolitical.
>
>
>> 2. Your comfort with the thin edge of the DRM wedge permitted into HTML5
>> on the grounds that you would not expect it to be hammered in much further
>> later on is not apolitical. It's a political position resting on a
>> philosophical belief.
>>
>
> This is really nothing new, we've seen this in the past with flash and
> other technologies -- which may or may not have been a "good" thing.  If
> the browser manufacturers want to add a tech, they with do so.  The
> principle of standards is that whatever technology introduced is uniform,
> ie so that the tags are consistent across browsers.
>
>
>> 3. Technical standards bodies deal with the negotiation amongst
>> philosophical and political views all the time.
>>
>> RE: "The fears you raise are purely hypothetical. "
>>
>> For me to respond with tangible examples would run of off-topic for this
>> list, but let me just say that if I'm being accused of following things to
>> their logical conclusions, I plead guilty. If I'm being accused of raising
>> issues unrelated to the tangible operation of a consistent, fair and open
>> WWW, I plead not guilty.
>>
>
> The W3C has always promoted a mix of commercial and personal use.  If you
> dont want to see DRM in all browsers, then persuade at least one browser
> manufacturer not to add it.
>
>
>>
>> Joseph Potvin
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 5:01 PM, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>wrote:
>>
>>>  On 10/7/13 2:36 PM, Joseph Potvin wrote:
>>>
>>>   Kingsley, FWIW I share the view of the EFF on this matter.
>>> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/lowering-your-standards
>>> "By approving this idea, the W3C has ceded control of the "user agent"
>>> (the term for a Web browser in W3C parlance) to a third-party, the content
>>> distributor.
>>>
>>>
>>> It hasn't done any such thing. I say that because there are many kinds
>>> of HTTP user agents (or clients). Today's Web browsers are just a sampling
>>> of a user agent then went mainstream via Mosaic and Netscape. The ubiquity
>>> of these user agents doesn't make them the only kind of user agent capable
>>> of providing UI/UX interactions with HTTP accessible resources (data).
>>>
>>>   That breaks a—perhaps until now unspoken—assurance about who has the
>>> final say in your Web experience, and indeed who has ultimate control over
>>> your computing device."
>>>
>>>
>>> This has zero effect on the ability to interact with Web Resources. I
>>> doubt any Web Browser vendor would be silly enough to conflate DRM with the
>>> fundamental functionality of their particular kind of HTTP user agent.
>>>
>>>
>>>  RE: "The fact that is could be used in certain ways by OEMs isn't a
>>> knock on the core concept."
>>>
>>>
>>> You are referring to it pejoratively, and for reasons that ultimately
>>> conflate DRM technology with the philosophical and political views of
>>> organizations such as FSF etc.. We should never conflate things because
>>> whenever we do the result is boils down to the "freedom paradox" i.e.,
>>> who's freedom is justifiably the purest etc..
>>>
>>>
>>>  And FWIW, I share the view of the FSF that the core concept is
>>> "defective by design".
>>>
>>>
>>> That's my point! You echoing a view that has zilch to do with
>>> architecture and everything to do with philosophical and political views.
>>>
>>>
>>>  Keeping this reply in context of web payments, surely it's going to be
>>> essential that both autonomous vendors and autonomous purchasers have
>>> ultimate control over what software runs and does not run on their own
>>> devices.
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, of course.
>>>
>>>  If this is not the case, then the final say on the web payments
>>> standard and any reference implementation will rest with the dominant
>>> device OEMs.
>>>
>>>
>>> Of course it won't.
>>>
>>>  The web payments community will merely swap obvious control by PayPal
>>> and Credit Card companies, for undeclared and hidden control by device OEMs
>>> and their business partners. In that scenario, I'd stay with the regulated
>>> financial institutions. Want an example? Many on this list who have
>>> purchased a laptop in the past year or so have a WindowsOS embedded as
>>> firmware -- it used to be we just had to pay the "Microsoft Tax" and then
>>> install our OS-of-choice. Not now. If MS chooses to differ in some way that
>>> gets in the way of clean operation of the web-payments standard, we'll have
>>> to differ with them -- the mother of all IE6 headaches. If an unauthorized
>>> "fix" is circulated, and to implement the fix you need to circumvent
>>> something on that laptop, that will be deemed criminal act, and the creator
>>> of the "fix" will be deemed to be facilitating criminal acts.  It's quite
>>> nuts. Here's another example:
>>> http://gigaom.com/2013/09/26/seriously-samsung
>>> -sorry-european-roamers-but-the-new-galaxy-note-3-is-region-locked/
>>>
>>>
>>> The architecture of the World Wide Web ensures we never end up down such
>>> a rat-hole. The fears you raise are purely hypothetical.
>>>
>>>
>>> A few years ago during public consultations about pending Copyright
>>> legislation in Canada (where I am) I outlined the general hardware control
>>> problem presented by DRM. Here is my submission:
>>> http://www.digital-copyright.ca/documents/Copyright_Potvin_4jul08.html
>>>
>>>  In a free market society, it's basic that we each own our devices.
>>>
>>>
>>> In a free society people choose their freedoms i.e., the "freedom
>>> paradox" doesn't deprive anyone of their freedom.
>>>
>>>
>>> Links:
>>>
>>> [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84wJlDC8--o -- BBC Documentary about
>>> Freedom .
>>>
>>>
>>>  Joseph Potvin
>>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 10/7/13 11:09 AM, Joseph Potvin wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> DRM involves encrypting content, and only giving out decryption keys to
>>>>> vendors who contractually agree to disallow the users/owners of
>>>>> computers
>>>>> from having any control.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think that's a very narrow interpretation of what DRM (Digital Rights
>>>> Management) is all about. There's nothing about DRM that implies it will
>>>> become conflated with the notion of a User Agent. It's simply functionality
>>>> usable by a user agent. The fact that is could be used in certain ways by
>>>> OEMs isn't a knock on the core concept.
>>>>
>>>> If we took this approach to other standards where would the World Wide
>>>> Web be today?
>>>>
>>>> Let's keep DRM and and its potential uses distinct :-)
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Kingsley Idehen
>>>> Founder & CEO
>>>> OpenLink Software
>>>> Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
>>>> Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
>>>> Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
>>>> Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about
>>>> LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Joseph Potvin
>>> Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
>>> The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
>>> http://www.projectmanagementhotel.com/projects/opman-portfolio
>>> jpotvin@opman.ca
>>> Mobile: 819-593-5983
>>> LinkedIn (Google short URL): http://goo.gl/Ssp56
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Kingsley Idehen	
>>> Founder & CEO
>>> OpenLink Software
>>> Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
>>> Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
>>> Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
>>> Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about
>>> LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> <http://goo.gl/Ssp56>
>>
>