Re: LONGDESC: some current problems and a proposed solution added to the wiki

Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> 
> Philip TAYLOR wrote:
>> Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>>> It is questionable whether embed needs to have fallback content [...]
>>
>> <embed> /absolutely/ needs fallback content.
> 
> For what purpose?  Accessibility, technical limitations, or other?
> 
>> To hear someone as knowledgeable as Lachlan argue that it might not 
>> need fallback content is intensely depressing, harking as it does to 
>> the pre-accessibility, pre-enlightenment, dark ages ...
> 
> The question of whether or not it needs fallback really depends on the 
> problem you are trying to solve.  If the problem is accessibility, then 
> it has been stated several times that the plugins and content should be 
> made accessibile by themselves, which is outside the scope of HTML.  If 

That, in my view, is an unreasonable expectation, and requires software 
which is being used because it is excellent at doing one thing to be a 
jack of all trades.

> it's for technical limitations, then there are various possible 
> solutions that could be investigated.  But, as I said before, I think 
> discussion of technical limitations and solutions should be moved to a 
> separate thread.

The limitations tend to be commercial, security, and broad definition 
accessibility, i.e. the plugin may not be available because it not 
available for the user's platform, is too expensive, is considered an 
unacceptable security risk, requires too many machine or network 
resources, requires reflashing 1000s of kiosks scattered around the 
country, requires updates to a set top box whose manufactures no longer 
exists or has abandoned support, etc.

public-html has been dropped as my posting to it will not succeed or 
will be excessively delayed by moderation.  Cross-posting works on 
unmoderated usenet newsgroups, but public mailing lists are generally at 
least minimally moderated (subscribers only).
> 


-- 
David Woolley
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Received on Sunday, 1 July 2007 09:39:40 UTC