On Wed, 29 Dec 2010 01:44:09 +0100, Seth Brown <[email protected]> wrote:

First I'd like to point out that accessing hardware is already
possible through ActiveX, and I think I've heard of some people doing
it with XUL. I would like to standardize these hardware interactions.



I don't think it should be done without strict security measures,

Indeed. This matters...

Also it should be possible to allow an administrator to set policies
to block the browser from accessing usb/RS232.

So does this...

At some point it is going to be necessary for the web apps to interact
with hardware.... I hate the concept of platform specific apps and I
think that once HTML5 if fully implemented apps will start to
disappear. The only real hurdle left is hardware interaction, but it
will happen at some point. Why don't we make sure it gets done right?

Indeed. This is the point of initiatives like Opera platform, OMTP's BONDI, and WAC [1].

I'm going to start working on a concrete proposal. I've never written
one before, so any advice would be appreciated -- should I just look
through other completed specs and format it accordingly?

That helps in making the content easy to find and understand for people who are used to reading specs. I suggest you look at W3C's DAP group [2] for an idea of what people are doing - and at WAC for an idea of stuff that is being shipped already.

[1] http://www.jil.org/web/jil or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wholesale_Application_Community
[2] http://www.w3.org/2009/dap/

cheers

Chaals

--
Charles McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
    je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg lærer norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com

Reply via email to