Re: Proposal to expand definition of User Agents

I think you are trying too hard for preciseness that's unnecessary.  Consider:

"A user agent is *anything* that retrieves and renders Web content,
including text, graphics, sounds, video, images, and other content types."

"anything" is about as broad as you can get.

John

At 10:58 PM 6/8/00 -0400, Harvey Bingham wrote:
>At 2000-06-07 16:01-0700, Dick Brown wrote:
>Good idea. Is this broad enough to include special hardware and its
>software interface?
>
>>The User Agent guidelines currently define user agent in this way:
>>
>>"A user agent is an application that retrieves and renders Web content,
>>including text, graphics, sounds, video, images, and other content types."
>>
>>I propose we expand that definition to say (new text between asterisks):
>>
>>"A user agent is an application *or operating system component* that
>>retrieves and renders Web content, including text, graphics, sounds, video,
>>images, and other content types."
>>
>>Why the change? There are technologies that Microsoft does not consider
>>applications, but rather part of the operating system, that wouldn't be
>>covered by the User Agent guidelines under the current definition.
>>
>>Obviously, the OS vs. application issue has received some attention outside
>>the scope of the WAI, and while I am not prepared to discuss that issue in
>>detail, I hope we can agree on the broader definition.
>>
>>Dick Brown
>>Program Manager, Web Accessibility
>>Microsoft Corp.
>>http://www.microsoft.com/enable/
>Regards/Harvey Bingham
>
John A. Gardner
Professor and Director, Science Access Project
Department of Physics
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
tel: (541) 737 3278
FAX: (541) 737 1683
	SAP URL: http://dots.physics.orst.edu/

Received on Friday, 9 June 2000 12:20:07 UTC