Re: [whatwg] Administrivia: new member in the oversight committee
Ian Hickson wrote: On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, Dan Brickley wrote: Ian Hickson wrote: FYI, Anne van Kesteren was just invited to join the WHATWG membership (as defined by our charter, basically that's the small group of people whom I have to answer to in my role as editor). He was invited due to his long involvement in the WHATWG. This oversight group doesn't do much and this won't really change anything; basically the group is there to make sure I don't become evil and biased somehow, and to help direct the group should we decide to take on some new project. Does the committee have a mailing list? Where do they discuss things? Any papertrail? There's no public accountability for this group, no. It's roughly equivalent to W3C staff, except that it is not a paid position. W3C staff report through a variety of documented means to their stakeholders (including at regular events, Web Conference, TPs etc), they have named and documented roles grounded in the W3C Process, a class of document for airing their proposals to the wider community (Team notes) as well as strong internal-transparency via extensive internal email, cvs and irc logging so that new team-members can have access to previous discussions. Is this the equivalence you have in mind? W3C staff as a group culture (nothing personal here; I was one myself years) also have a tendency to be a little over-secretive, insular, and too often slip into thinking of themselves as having to heroically figure out what to do internally before presenting an external opinion. Get a tight-knit, smart and distributed group of people together with a sense of mission, and that's a hard trait to avoid. I hope you'll lean towards the public accountability side of things here. See also: http://www.whatwg.org/charter Thanks, interesting. Is a version history and change-log available, beyond what can be discerned from http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.whatwg.org/charter ? From the outside it is hard to understand how the charter has evolved over time. cheers, Dan -- http://danbri.org/
Re: [whatwg] [HTML5] Accessibility question
On Mar 31, 2008, at 08:10, Nicholas C. Zakas wrote: @irrelevant is virtually indistinguishable from setting content to display: none. My point in bringing up accessibility with a possible attribute or element is to figure out where the lines between HTML and CSS are, as it appears HTML 5 has muddied the water. As I stated earlier on this list, if something is truly irrelevant, then it's not included in the page. Something that's on the page and hidden is relevant, just perhaps not at the current time, which led to the suggestion on this list to rename the attribute ignore. I agree that the semantic fig leaf is confusing. It means hidden (from all interaction modes). I understand your point about superfluity being defined by the presentation (one could argue the same about relevance...). Aural CSS seemed, at one point, like it would make sense for handling such issues. However, since screen readers read the screen media styles, it doesn't really help. More to the point, it is unreasonable to expect casual authors to supply sensible aural CSS even if it were supported. I still feel like it's a good idea to have an optional attribute on each element that indicates the element's content should not be ignored by screen readers regardless of the style applied. Perhaps this could be better handled by an ARIA role... As currently drafted, ARIA has aria-hidden, which is essentially a less elegant duplicate of HTML5 'irrelevant'. As far as I can tell, ARIA doesn't specify aria-hidden=false as overriding display: none; in accessibility API exposure. (But then in general, ARIA doesn't specify processing requirements in the way we expect from HTML5.) -- Henri Sivonen [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hsivonen.iki.fi/
[whatwg] Images preprocessing
Hi, I was thinking about some preprocessing of images before they are uploaded to server. Typical example is unexperienced user who wants to upload whole set of photos from birthday party. Every photo has unnecessary huge proportions and will be resized immediately after upload. What if UA could be asked to resize images before upload thus saves banwidth, server resources, upload time, etc.? -- Filip
Re: [whatwg] Images preprocessing
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:44:54 -0700, Filip Likavcan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was thinking about some preprocessing of images before they are uploaded to server. Typical example is unexperienced user who wants to upload whole set of photos from birthday party. Every photo has unnecessary huge proportions and will be resized immediately after upload. What if UA could be asked to resize images before upload thus saves banwidth, server resources, upload time, etc.? With the undefined extensions to input type=file Web authors will be able to make this happen using said undefined extensions to the input type=file control and canvas. (The extensions basically give you access to the file contents.) They will have to write the processing script themselves. -- Anne van Kesteren http://annevankesteren.nl/ http://www.opera.com/
[whatwg] Video
I notice that HTML5's video section is incomplete and lacking. The text under 3.12.7.1 could have been written ten years ago: It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open source development model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue and this section will be updated once more information is available. The time has come for the W3C to swallow a bit of pride and cede this control, this area, to the Motion Picture Experts Group. While MPEG does not produce a codec that is free of any licensing constraints, the organization has produced a codec, actually several, that are world standards. You may have a digital cable or satellite service (that's MPEG-2 or MPEG-4). You may have a DVD player (MPEG-2), or a Blu-Ray player (MPEG-4). You may have an iPod (MPEG-4). And you may have heard of MP3. The time has come for the W3C, despite misgivings, to support an ISO/ IEC organization that is charged with the development of video and audio encoding standards. We can't have a separate set of standards for web distribution. It simply complicates workflows and stunts any potential transition to the web as the dominant distribution mechanism for such media. Whatever the misgivings, it's time to say that the ISO/IEC standards are preferable to proprietary codecs (Windows Media, Flash), and that MPEG-4 AVC is recommended over other codecs for video. It would be really great if an intrepid group of smart people were to come up with something technically superior to MPEG-4, make it a world standard for encoding audio and video, and make it available without any patent or royalty constraints. That has not happened, despite some strong efforts particularly from the OGG people, and it's time to acknowledge that fact and stop holding out. Again, the W3C should cede these issues to the ISO/IEC standards organization set up for the purpose of defining world standards in video and audio compression and decompression. Robert J Crisler Manager, Internet and Interactive Media UNL | University Communications 321 Canfield Administration Building Lincoln, NE 68588-0424 402-472-9878 For information on web development at UNL, please see the UNL Web Developer Network website at http://www.unl.edu/webdevnet/. University Communications Internet and Interactive Media can help you build an engaging online presence from site development to web applications development using open standards and open source.
Re: [whatwg] Video
Robert J Crisler wrote: The text under 3.12.7.1 could have been written ten years ago: It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open source development model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue and this section will be updated once more information is available. ... You may have a digital cable or satellite service (that's MPEG-2 or MPEG-4). You may have a DVD player (MPEG-2), or a Blu-Ray player (MPEG-4). You may have an iPod (MPEG-4). And you may have heard of MP3. So you believe that these codecs meet the requirements in 3.12.7.1? Or are you saying that the requirements need to change? If you are saying they need to change, who wins and who loses from the change? And how do you justify that? Gerv
Re: [whatwg] Administrivia: new member in the oversight committee
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008, Dan Brickley wrote: There's no public accountability for this group, no. It's roughly equivalent to W3C staff, except that it is not a paid position. W3C staff report through a variety of documented means to their stakeholders (including at regular events, Web Conference, TPs etc), they have named and documented roles grounded in the W3C Process, a class of document for airing their proposals to the wider community (Team notes) as well as strong internal-transparency via extensive internal email, cvs and irc logging so that new team-members can have access to previous discussions. Everything that the WHATWG members do and decide is conveyed to the [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list. In the past two years, all they have done is agreed to invite Anne to their group, which was immediately conveyed to the list. See also: http://www.whatwg.org/charter Thanks, interesting. Is a version history and change-log available, beyond what can be discerned from http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.whatwg.org/charter ? From the outside it is hard to understand how the charter has evolved over time. The document was created in early 2004 with the announcement of the WHATWG. Dean Edwards was invited in June 2004. Anne was added a few days ago. That's all. (The other changes were to the markup of the header, or adding links to translations, etc.) -- Ian Hickson U+1047E)\._.,--,'``.fL http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A/, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,. Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
Re: [whatwg] [HTML5] Accessibility question
So given all of this, is it reasonable to expect HTML 5 to provide something for this use case? Perhaps my suggestions of @noview introduces incorrect semantics, perhaps something along the lines of @important to indicate content is important regardless of style (and so screen readers should not ignore it)? -Nicholas - Original Message From: Henri Sivonen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Nicholas C.Zakas [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED]; whatwg List [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Ian Hickson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 3:46:46 AM Subject: Re: [whatwg] [HTML5] Accessibility question On Mar 31, 2008, at 08:10, Nicholas C. Zakas wrote: @irrelevant is virtually indistinguishable from setting content to display: none. My point in bringing up accessibility with a possible attribute or element is to figure out where the lines between HTML and CSS are, as it appears HTML 5 has muddied the water. As I stated earlier on this list, if something is truly irrelevant, then it's not included in the page. Something that's on the page and hidden is relevant, just perhaps not at the current time, which led to the suggestion on this list to rename the attribute ignore. I agree that the semantic fig leaf is confusing. It means hidden (from all interaction modes). I understand your point about superfluity being defined by the presentation (one could argue the same about relevance...). Aural CSS seemed, at one point, like it would make sense for handling such issues. However, since screen readers read the screen media styles, it doesn't really help. More to the point, it is unreasonable to expect casual authors to supply sensible aural CSS even if it were supported. I still feel like it's a good idea to have an optional attribute on each element that indicates the element's content should not be ignored by screen readers regardless of the style applied. Perhaps this could be better handled by an ARIA role... As currently drafted, ARIA has aria-hidden, which is essentially a less elegant duplicate of HTML5 'irrelevant'. As far as I can tell, ARIA doesn't specify aria-hidden=false as overriding display: none; in accessibility API exposure. (But then in general, ARIA doesn't specify processing requirements in the way we expect from HTML5.) -- Henri Sivonen [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hsivonen.iki.fi/ You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com
Re: [whatwg] Video
I'm not saying that the MPEG codecs meet the 3.12.7.1 requirements. I'm saying that ISO/IEC MPEG standards are vastly preferable to the nonstandard, single-company junk that web developers are saddled with now. The W3C need not abandon its ideals to declare that MPEG standards are better than the status quo of MS, Adobe and Real standards. From my perspective, and for what it's worth, I doubt that the ideals of the W3C as expressed in 3.12.7.1would result in a situation that would be superior to simply letting the international standards body for audio and video codecs deal with these technological areas. IF 3.12.7.1 were satisfied by Ogg or some other effort, we would still at best end up with a bifurcated digital world, where the web went with the free/open standard, while every other digital representation of video and audio was encoded in the MPEG set of standards. I just think idealism shouldn't have to trump pragmatism in this instance. Who wins and who loses? Web and new media developers win by having a streamlined workflow and one expectation for video and audio standards support in browsers. Users win by not having to worry about whether or not they have the right plug-in for Site A or Site B. The W3C wins by having a video tag that's reliable and complete, and not just a sort-of-better EMBED. The issue of a small licensing fee didn't stop MPEG 1 Part 3 from becoming the ubiquitous world standard for audio. It isn't going to stop MPEG-4 AAC from supplanting it, and it hasn't stopped MPEG-2 and AVC from being the standard for HD codecs. Insisting on purity in these matters while the world moves on strikes me as just a bit quixotic. On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 12:10 PM, Gervase Markham [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Robert J Crisler wrote: The text under 3.12.7.1 could have been written ten years ago: It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open source development model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue and this section will be updated once more information is available. ... You may have a digital cable or satellite service (that's MPEG-2 or MPEG-4). You may have a DVD player (MPEG-2), or a Blu-Ray player (MPEG-4). You may have an iPod (MPEG-4). And you may have heard of MP3. So you believe that these codecs meet the requirements in 3.12.7.1? Or are you saying that the requirements need to change? If you are saying they need to change, who wins and who loses from the change? And how do you justify that? Gerv
Re: [whatwg] Video
On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Robert J Crisler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The issue of a small licensing fee didn't stop MPEG 1 Part 3 from becoming the ubiquitous world standard for audio. MP3 because an ISO/IEC standard in 1991, but patent enforcement did not happen until 1998, until which time most people regarded MP3 as a basically free codec. This and it's high compression quality were the main reasons it became a de-facto standard. This uptake model cannot be repeated in modern times. It isn't going to stop MPEG-4 AAC from supplanting it, and it hasn't stopped MPEG-2 and AVC from being the standard for HD codecs. Insisting on purity in these matters while the world moves on strikes me as just a bit quixotic. The current standard for publishing media on the Web, in particular consumer media, is Adobe Flash. This is the case not because of the codecs inside Adobe Flash but because sites such as YouTube enable consumers to publish media without having to worry about license fees and patents, as well as technical issues. The enabler here is the embed tag. This situation is however unsatisfactory in multiple ways: it restricts innovation around media and it restricts the common consumer from working freely with their own media content in a Web environment. Just imagine how restricted you would be if ascii attracted license fees and you had to pay for any text you are trying to publish. Also, your assumption that free codecs are now and always will be of inferior quality to codecs which attract license fees is uninformed. The codecs are not of inferior quality. The currently available implementations may be. But even there I would argue that the recently released dirac codec from the BBC is at the front of codec RD and is in many respects superior to the codecs you mention. The issue with 3.12.7.1 is simply that not enough research has been undertaken to make an informed decision for a baseline codec for the HTML5 video element. Let's not make any uninformed decisions at this time, but rather give this issue the time it requires to be assessed by the experts. Regards, Silvia.
