Re: Draft finding - "Transitioning the Web to HTTPS"

If y'all could take me off the CC list, that'd be sweet. I quit the
list weeks ago.

On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 3:42 PM, Eric J. Bowman <eric@bisonsystems.net> wrote:
> Marc Fawzi wrote:
>>
>> Yes the Akamai connection is a conflict of interest, but you can
>> argue the same about browser vendors other than Mozilla driving the
>> TAG/W3C ... They do what is in their  interest.
>>
>
> Could argue that; except my opinion is based on actions, more than words
> or affiliations. Or any belief that Mozilla is sacrosanct -- whatever
> the extent of AOL's involvement these days, funding comes primarily
> from their search deal with Google (or since November, Yahoo). In no
> way, shape, or form do I acknowledge Mozilla as the voice of the indy
> Web developer.
>
> As to TAG members, I take 'em one at a time; I never had occasion to
> suspect any of Larry's positions of having the slightest thing to do
> with the best interests of Adobe, for instance. At most, he was the one
> member who grok'd what I was saying about embeddable fonts, making his
> employment by Adobe nothing but positive, by surfacing my posts on the
> subject without having any appearance of undue influence on the ensuing
> discussion. Which remains the only issue I've ever taken Microsoft's
> side on, FWIW. All in the www-tag archives, vs. meta-searching github.
>
> Here, TBL's in charge, and despite our disagreements I've never held
> his position to be the product of executive decisions taken above his
> pay grade, and I believe most of TAG's work reflects TBL's influence
> more than that of any large corporation, over time with changing
> membership. Some of those decisions "go with the flow" I'm opposed to,
> without being blatantly agenda-driven. But the "flow" nowadays is so
> corporate-agenda-driven, by which I don't mean SMB's, that the only
> metaphor I have for it is the TPP negotiations, and that isn't a good
> thing.
>
> Otherwise I'd long since have shut up, here. But we get back to that
> whole *appearance* of impropriety thing, which perhaps helps us
> sympathize with independent developers who've become opposed to the
> entire *process* more so than any specific results. To the point where
> it's enough to acknowledge conflicts exist, without enumerating them
> or assigning names, rather than being dismissive of genuine concerns on
> conspiracy-theory grounds in an effort to declare www-tag more noise
> than signal.
>
>>
>> I find it disturbing that TimBL's opinion on the matter which is very
>> inspiring is not echoed by other vocal members of the TAG ... The
>> "Director hat off" would not be explicitly noted if "Director hat on"
>> wasn't about making compromises with self interested browser vendors,
>> but this does NOT mean that everyone on the TAG from Google is self
>> interested.  I do find that many have the interest of the web at
>> heart.
>>
>
> We can agree on that, while at the same time I could better believe
> that contention if TAG members would take it upon themselves to at
> least read, if not understand, REST before pontificating on Web
> architecture (by which I mean, read the Taylor textbook so we can at
> least speak the same language, please). Because I find that when
> discussions here do come around to architecture, I'm somehow speaking
> Martian nowadays.
>
>>
>> You're hardly the only developer who cares.
>>
>
> Never claimed to be. Just the only freelance, rural Web developer who
> cares, and is knowledgeable, enough about architecture to post to this
> list. Around here, we like to catgegorize certain things as "big city
> problems", but that's the opposite of my connectivity experience.
>
> While I may come across as an arrogant ass, bear in mind my credentials,
> where my first exposure to the notion that the Web even *had* an
> architecture came in '97-'98 or so when I coded a CMS for a Fortune 500
> company (which no longer exists) using LiveWire/SSJS. Which pointed to
> a document called "HTTP Request Object" in its help files, to explain
> the difference between GET/HEAD/PUT/POST etc. Took me another decade to
> understand REST.
>
> For years, I pointed to that as an example of "I'm not always right"
> and nobody went against my self-deprecation, or scoffing at the very
> notion of using Javascript on the server, to code a CMS.
>
> But it turns out, since V8/node.js, that I wasn't wrong after all. So
> perhaps my conservative approach to Web architecture (i.e. Taylor
> school, i.e. "Software Architecture: Foundations, Theory and Practice"
> should be required reading for TAG members) may be excused, even when
> it rankles those who just want to make "progress".
>
>>
>> Again, not implying that all those who work for Google are conspiring
>> to push Google's interest. Many have good and self less intent.
>>
>
> Which would be much easier to buy into, if the companies they work for
> hadn't been caught with their pants down so many times, subverting the
> best interests of the Web in favor of their quarterly bottom lines. I'd
> love to fade away, instead of sticking it out in the name of vigilance,
> on this very point. But maybe the fact that nothing I have to say here
> begins to have anything to do with ranching dudes, makes me more,
> rather than less, credible. I *don't* have a horse in this race, but I
> am in an excellent position to referee by calling 'em as I see 'em.
>
> -Eric

Received on Thursday, 29 January 2015 05:43:52 UTC