I find Wolfgang Redtenbacher's conclusion very to the point.(*)
This is indeed a rather political issue (in the rational sense of this
word), and there's a good criterium for this: if a "rule" does protect
"essential" values of a minority, without (potentially repressive)
prescriptions for the rest of the world.
The South African (actual) history is a very pertinent example.
As much as I sympathise with J.D. Abolins -
> ...There is the matter of the overuse of law to foster good things. I
> am cautious with the use of laws because they have a life of their own.
(and he gives some good examples) there is a fundamental flaw in this
argument: even in the case of "laws" having (been used with)
counterdirected effects there must be a "law" for recourse. Thus, no
way around of having "laws".
PDF is exemplary for four other aspects, one worse than the other:
(a) "lawlessness" - a seemingly "non-regulated" situation: in fact
it's this particular warlord (Adobe) which decides on the rules (and
changes them, with each version, dependent on his own profit
assessments);
a technologically disguised form of -
(b) overrule: the "communicator" being allowed to determine to the
last pixel (thought?) how the "target" has to perceive the
"communication" (a dream of dictatorial propaganda). That the British
government sets up most of its "official" utterances in this manner
tells more about the condition of parliamentary democracy there than
any debate in the Commons;
(c1) exclusion: the hitherto best bullying instrument in the digital
world. You either accept the "rules" (i.e., pay for equipment and
ever-increasing license fees) or you're out - you cannot even know
what you'd be out of when the warlord decides to no longer condescent
to allow any glance at it (through his gratiously offered look through
the backdoorof it "free" [you pay connection, don't you?] translation
server);
(c2) the perfect absence of public control of what public bureaucracies,
as major "players" in that game, are doing: In the US you have this
"ADA" (Americans with Disabilities Act) which by its pure existence
may have avoided the worst abberations. Despite of the fact that it
is fairly despised by some powerful business interests, there had been
astonishingly few contests of that "rule"(**), but elsewhere, see
Britain or the EU instances, it's full throttle ahead, no breaks.
(d) the perfect absence of any debate about the use and usefulness of
a specific "technological" gadget: there has been *no* whatsoever
assessment of the usefulness of this resources guttling gadget.(***)
Back to the anchor of this SurvPC list: I find it quite fascinating
- and relevant - how directly some seemingly technical issues are
intertwined with highly "political" ones (in all senses now).
// Heimo Claasen // <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> // Brussels 1999-11-17
HomePage of ReRead - and much to read ==> http://www.inti.be/hammer
(*)
--------------------quote:--------------
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 05:48:50 -0500
From: Redtenbacher Software <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In all the discussions on accessibility, however, I found that
there is a uniform agreement that the "Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines" of the W3C (http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/)
constitute a good compromise that is fair to all parties.
So, as long as any legal accessibility requirements are limited
to the "Priority Level 1" checkpoints of the "Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines", I am in support of making them
obligatory. They are easy to satisfy and constitute only those
aspects which, when violated, will make it impossible for one or
more groups to access information in the document at all (see
section 4 of the "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines").
-------------------unquote.-------------
(**) Biased implication is the issue, and to what degree that has been
baked in into the "rule". Swedish "hygiene" prescriptions in the 60s/70s
(toilets per seats in a cafe) killed not only the village watering
holes - outflow of the fruitless, because of top-down,
"anti-alkoholism" campaign - but had been pointed specificly against the
"alternative" scene, and vigorously against the pitily few "foreigners"
sheebeens. Powerplay with the rule against the rule. So you need
recourse against that - back to square one.
(***) In a way, Adobe has been (hitherto) sucessful where Ford failed
miserably with their "Edsel" - to establish a dinosaur as model for
all future (car/IT) development.
-hc
-hc
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