Proposed W3C Charter: HTML Working Group

[L. David Baron]

W3C is proposing a revised charter for the HTML Working Group.
For more details, see:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013Feb/0009.html
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2012/

Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
Tuesday, March 12. Please reply to this thread if you think there's
something we should say.

-David

--
𝄞 L. David Baron http://dbaron.org/ 𝄂
𝄢 Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/ 𝄂

[Justin Dolske]

On 2/8/13 2:37 PM, L. David Baron wrote:
> W3C is proposing a revised charter for the HTML Working Group.
> For more details, see:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013Feb/0009.html
> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2012/

Is there a way to see what's changing from the current charter?

Justin

[L. David Baron]

The only way I know of is manually comparing to
http://www.w3.org/2007/03/HTML-WG-charter.html .

[Benjamin Smedberg]

On 2/8/2013 5:37 PM, L. David Baron wrote:
> W3C is proposing a revised charter for the HTML Working Group.
> For more details, see:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013Feb/0009.html
> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2012/
>

> Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
> Tuesday, March 12. Please reply to this thread if you think there's
> something we should say.

The only really interesting thing in the new charter seems to be the
explicit call for standardizing "playback of protected content" for the
HTMLMediaElement, which is pretty much codewords for DRM.

DRM is fundamentally at odds with the notion of an open web and the HTML
specification. The purpose of good specifications is to make it possible
for anyone to implement a browser that can render the web. The purpose
of DRM is to make it possible for content owners to give only some
browsers the ability to play their content. DRM also defeats "save",
sharing, and remixing, which are fundamental aspects of the web.

Whether or not there are practical short-term compromises that should be
made to make a better alternative to Silverlight, I don't think that it
should be within the scope of "HTML" to do that; it should be a separate
effort, highly targeted at solving the "devices based on HTML currently
can't play netflix content" problem without making any long-term
commitments to DRM in the browser.

--BDS

[sdaug...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, February 12, 2013 11:02:16 AM UTC-5, Benjamin Smedberg wrote:
> On 2/8/2013 5:37 PM, L. David Baron wrote:
>
> > W3C is proposing a revised charter for the HTML Working Group.
>
> > For more details, see:
>
> > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013Feb/0009.html
>
> > http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2012/
>
> >
>
> > Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
>
> > Tuesday, March 12. Please reply to this thread if you think there's
>
> > something we should say.

Is it just me, or is this fundamentally flawed from a security standpoint as well - malicious content able to hide from analysis by browser-enforced DRM? No thanks.

[sdaug...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, February 12, 2013 11:02:16 AM UTC-5, Benjamin Smedberg wrote:

> On 2/8/2013 5:37 PM, L. David Baron wrote:
>
> > W3C is proposing a revised charter for the HTML Working Group.
>
> > For more details, see:
>
> > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013Feb/0009.html
>
> > http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2012/
>
> >
>
> > Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
>
> > Tuesday, March 12. Please reply to this thread if you think there's
>
> > something we should say.

[Robert O'Callahan]

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 5:02 AM, Benjamin Smedberg <benj...@smedbergs.us>wrote:

> The only really interesting thing in the new charter seems to be the
> explicit call for standardizing "playback of protected content" for the
> HTMLMediaElement, which is pretty much codewords for DRM.
>
> DRM is fundamentally at odds with the notion of an open web and the HTML
> specification. The purpose of good specifications is to make it possible
> for anyone to implement a browser that can render the web. The purpose of
> DRM is to make it possible for content owners to give only some browsers
> the ability to play their content. DRM also defeats "save", sharing, and
> remixing, which are fundamental aspects of the web.
>
> Whether or not there are practical short-term compromises that should be
> made to make a better alternative to Silverlight, I don't think that it
> should be within the scope of "HTML" to do that; it should be a separate
> effort, highly targeted at solving the "devices based on HTML currently
> can't play netflix content" problem without making any long-term
> commitments to DRM in the browser.
>

If you really care about this, please contribute to the discussions on
public-html-admin/public-html-media. Thanks :-)

Rob
--
Wrfhf pnyyrq gurz gbtrgure naq fnvq, “Lbh xabj gung gur ehyref bs gur
Tragvyrf ybeq vg bire gurz, naq gurve uvtu bssvpvnyf rkrepvfr nhgubevgl
bire gurz. Abg fb jvgu lbh. Vafgrnq, jubrire jnagf gb orpbzr terng nzbat
lbh zhfg or lbhe freinag, naq jubrire jnagf gb or svefg zhfg or lbhe fynir
— whfg nf gur Fba bs Zna qvq abg pbzr gb or freirq, ohg gb freir, naq gb
tvir uvf yvsr nf n enafbz sbe znal.” [Znggurj 20:25-28]

[Benoit Jacob]

2013/2/12 Robert O'Callahan <rob...@ocallahan.org>

> On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 5:02 AM, Benjamin Smedberg <benj...@smedbergs.us
> >wrote:
>
> > The only really interesting thing in the new charter seems to be the
> > explicit call for standardizing "playback of protected content" for the
> > HTMLMediaElement, which is pretty much codewords for DRM.
> >
> > DRM is fundamentally at odds with the notion of an open web and the HTML
> > specification. The purpose of good specifications is to make it possible
> > for anyone to implement a browser that can render the web. The purpose of
> > DRM is to make it possible for content owners to give only some browsers
> > the ability to play their content. DRM also defeats "save", sharing, and
> > remixing, which are fundamental aspects of the web.
> >
> > Whether or not there are practical short-term compromises that should be
> > made to make a better alternative to Silverlight, I don't think that it
> > should be within the scope of "HTML" to do that; it should be a separate
> > effort, highly targeted at solving the "devices based on HTML currently
> > can't play netflix content" problem without making any long-term
> > commitments to DRM in the browser.
> >
>
> If you really care about this, please contribute to the discussions on
> public-html-admin/public-html-media. Thanks :-)
>

I agree wholeheartedly with Benjamin and care about this, but I don't have
a lot of time to get into this presumably time-consuming discussion on a
W3C mailing list --- so I'd just like to express support to any Mozilla
representative fighting this fight there.

Beyond the objection of principle (which I agree too -- DRM is incompatible
with the notion of open standards), I'd also make the argument that we
shouldn't let content owners impress us too easily with claims that
particular protection measures would be a requirement before serious
content would move to open Web standards. In the WebGL working group we've
received input from content developers/owners claiming that various flavors
of protection (e.g. they wanted binary shader formats) were a requirement
before any serious commercial content would move to the open Web platform.
We just ignored them, and big content started moving to WebGL anyways.

Benoit

> Rob
> --
> Wrfhf pnyyrq gurz gbtrgure naq fnvq, “Lbh xabj gung gur ehyref bs gur
> Tragvyrf ybeq vg bire gurz, naq gurve uvtu bssvpvnyf rkrepvfr nhgubevgl
> bire gurz. Abg fb jvgu lbh. Vafgrnq, jubrire jnagf gb orpbzr terng nzbat
> lbh zhfg or lbhe freinag, naq jubrire jnagf gb or svefg zhfg or lbhe fynir
> — whfg nf gur Fba bs Zna qvq abg pbzr gb or freirq, ohg gb freir, naq gb
> tvir uvf yvsr nf n enafbz sbe znal.” [Znggurj 20:25-28]

> _______________________________________________
> dev-platform mailing list
> dev-pl...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-platform
>

[Gervase Markham]

On 12/02/13 21:20, Benoit Jacob wrote:
> I agree wholeheartedly with Benjamin and care about this, but I don't have
> a lot of time to get into this presumably time-consuming discussion on a
> W3C mailing list --- so I'd just like to express support to any Mozilla
> representative fighting this fight there.

I definitely think it's time that we had a discussion within Mozilla as
to what we should do about this. It's not trivially obvious what the
right thing for the web is.

The internet is going to be used as a delivery mechanism for commercial
high-cost-of-production video. That's undeniable. There are three ways
this could play out (pun intended):

A) Provide a DRM mechanism in HTML5 which keeps them happy. (How
breakable or not it actually is, is a different question.) Have the
video delivered that way.

B) Have all the commercial video content be only available via Flash,
proprietary plugins or proprietary mobile apps, thereby saying "there
are some things the open web just can't provide for you - you need to go
closed for that".

C) Hope the economic analysis is wrong and that if we kill the idea of
DRM in HTML5, this content will appear un-DRMed in HTML5 form anyway
because it's just easier for them and the ease outweighs the lack of DRM.

My concern is that if we go for C), we'll get B), and B) might be worse
than A).

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 12/02/13 21:20, Benoit Jacob wrote:

> I agree wholeheartedly with Benjamin and care about this, but I don't have
> a lot of time to get into this presumably time-consuming discussion on a
> W3C mailing list --- so I'd just like to express support to any Mozilla
> representative fighting this fight there.

[Henri Sivonen]

For starters, see
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-admin/2013Feb/0178.html
.

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> A) Provide a DRM mechanism in HTML5 which keeps them happy. (How
> breakable or not it actually is, is a different question.) Have the
> video delivered that way.

EME assumes multiple Key Systems, so EME isn't a fully contained one
mechanism. It's a common part of several intentionally mutually
incompatible mechanisms. (Incompatible on the key initialization level
that is. They'll be intentionally compatible on the level of the large
files that end up on content delivery networks.)

> B) Have all the commercial video content be only available via Flash,
> proprietary plugins or proprietary mobile apps, thereby saying "there
> are some things the open web just can't provide for you - you need to go
> closed for that".

I don't think we have this option. Microsoft and Google have editors
on the EME spec. So this option looks more like: Have Hollywood movies
available with good performance and without additional installs in IE
and Chrome and *for the time being* available via Silverlight in
Firefox on Windows and Mac (i.e. with additional installations,
updates and performance and stability troubles and only as long as
Microsoft bothers to keep Silverlight working and available).

> C) Hope the economic analysis is wrong and that if we kill the idea of
> DRM in HTML5, this content will appear un-DRMed in HTML5 form anyway
> because it's just easier for them and the ease outweighs the lack of DRM.
>
> My concern is that if we go for C), we'll get B), and B) might be worse
> than A).

Indeed. And as noted above, B is likely to be worse than how you phrased it.

--
Henri Sivonen
hsiv...@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/

[Gervase Markham]

On 13/02/13 12:55, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> I don't think we have this option. Microsoft and Google have editors
> on the EME spec. So this option looks more like: Have Hollywood movies
> available with good performance and without additional installs in IE
> and Chrome and *for the time being* available via Silverlight in
> Firefox on Windows and Mac

...and not on Linux at all...

> (i.e. with additional installations,
> updates and performance and stability troubles and only as long as
> Microsoft bothers to keep Silverlight working and available).

I'm not enamoured of the idea of the answer to "how do I watch
Netflix/LoveFilm in Firefox?" being "head over to Microsoft and install
Silverlight; bad luck if you run anything other than Windows or Mac OS X".

(AFAICT, that is the answer at the moment anyway, but at least it's the
same for all browsers. LoveFilm phased out Flash a while back - I was an
upset customer. I assume Netflix did the same.)

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 12/02/13 21:20, Benoit Jacob wrote:

> I agree wholeheartedly with Benjamin and care about this, but I don't have
> a lot of time to get into this presumably time-consuming discussion on a
> W3C mailing list --- so I'd just like to express support to any Mozilla
> representative fighting this fight there.

I definitely think it's time that we had a discussion within Mozilla as
to what we should do about this. It's not trivially obvious what the
right thing for the web is.

The internet is going to be used as a delivery mechanism for commercial
high-cost-of-production video. That's undeniable. There are three ways
this could play out (pun intended):

A) Provide a DRM mechanism in HTML5 which keeps them happy. (How
breakable or not it actually is, is a different question.) Have the
video delivered that way.

B) Have all the commercial video content be only available via Flash,
proprietary plugins or proprietary mobile apps, thereby saying "there
are some things the open web just can't provide for you - you need to go
closed for that".

C) Hope the economic analysis is wrong and that if we kill the idea of
DRM in HTML5, this content will appear un-DRMed in HTML5 form anyway
because it's just easier for them and the ease outweighs the lack of DRM.

My concern is that if we go for C), we'll get B), and B) might be worse
than A).

Gerv

[Neil]

Gervase Markham wrote:

>I'm not enamoured of the idea of the answer to "how do I watch Netflix/LoveFilm in Firefox?" being "head over to Microsoft and install Silverlight; bad luck if you run anything other than Windows or Mac OS X".
>
>(AFAICT, that is the answer at the moment anyway, but at least it's the same for all browsers. LoveFilm phased out Flash a while back - I was an upset customer. I assume Netflix did the same.)
>
>

Not forgetting that Adobe phased out Flash for Linux a while back too
anyway.

--
Warning: May contain traces of nuts.

[L. David Baron]

On Friday 2013-02-08 14:37 -0800, L. David Baron wrote:
> W3C is proposing a revised charter for the HTML Working Group.
> For more details, see:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013Feb/0009.html
> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2012/
>
> Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
> Tuesday, March 12. Please reply to this thread if you think there's
> something we should say.

A bit of followup here. One of the pieces of feedback I got as part
of the previous round of review was that we should push for at least
allowing *experimentation* with more open document licenses than the
W3C currently allows. As a result, the W3C has proposed a revised
charter with this modification and a few other small modifications
resulting from the review. I've described the rationale for this
and the sequence of events in a bit more detail here:
http://dbaron.org/log/20130522-w3c-licensing

This means there's currently another charter review period going on,
to review this new charter:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013May/0000.html
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2013/

Given the previous review, I'd like to be able to support this
revision without making further comments. But nonetheless I'm
posting the revised charter here in case others have comments that
we ought to submit as part of this charter review (deadline: May
29).

[Mounir Lamouri]

On 22/05/13 03:09, L. David Baron wrote:
> On Friday 2013-02-08 14:37 -0800, L. David Baron wrote:
>> W3C is proposing a revised charter for the HTML Working Group.
>> For more details, see:
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013Feb/0009.html
>> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2012/
>>
>> Mozilla has the opportunity to send comments or objections through
>> Tuesday, March 12. Please reply to this thread if you think there's
>> something we should say.
>
> A bit of followup here. One of the pieces of feedback I got as part
> of the previous round of review was that we should push for at least
> allowing *experimentation* with more open document licenses than the
> W3C currently allows. As a result, the W3C has proposed a revised
> charter with this modification and a few other small modifications
> resulting from the review. I've described the rationale for this
> and the sequence of events in a bit more detail here:
> http://dbaron.org/log/20130522-w3c-licensing
>
> This means there's currently another charter review period going on,
> to review this new charter:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013May/0000.html
> http://www.w3.org/html/wg/charter/2013/

Thank you for doing that David, this is a great step forward :)

-- Mounir