On DRM in HTML

The W3C continues its sleepwalk into irrelevance.

Its investment in XHTML, with a maligned set of goals, ended fruitlessly after a
wiser group set out with better intentions -- and solidly trounced the earlier
effort by producing a spec that is both useful and accurate. The W3C's only
option to continue appearing relevant was to 'embrace' their efforts, so it
props itself up by continuing to publish frozen specs while the WHATWG makes
actual progress on improving the web as a platform.

Having mostly lost control over the HTML spec, the W3C apparently now promotes
DRM on the bizarre premise that it will increase openness. The controversy about
this claim has generated quite a storm of publicity for the ailing institution.

Not all publicity is good publicity. Web developers' trust in the W3C, already
waning after the XHTML 2.0 debacle, cannot last much longer.

It's clear that the Consortium is more interested in representing the views of
corporations and serving their desires than those of the people who actually
work with the web. The W3C membership procedure alone makes this clear. Its org
chart and operating procedure are a damning indicator of who really has the
power to change the specifications that make the web work. The web is an open,
free information sharing platform whose technology is under the control of those
whose interests lie in secrecy and profiteering.

The W3C ought to represent the views of web developers. It ought to be an
organization that works on the basis of the consensus formed by the many
thousands of working web authors out there today, and the people they make
websites for. But the masses are powerless in the face of the diktat.

The masses have spoken. No DRM in HTML.

Will someone please take the CSS spec away from these clowns before that gets
screwed up somehow too?


dpk