
Adobe blocking publication of latest HTML5 draft? - bensummers
http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1265967771&count=1
======
telemachos
Mark Pilgrim makes a good point that I wonder about
(<http://twitter.com/diveintomark/status/9013587732>): why are there member-
only lists at all? That is, HTML is an open standard. I had no idea there were
secret holds. Was this a known part of the process? Is it done often? Are
there any precedents?

~~~
seldo
It has been a long time since I was involved in the W3C, but I can tell you
that the public lists are plagued with clueless people who jump onto, e.g.,
the XHTML 2.0 standards definition list and ask for help with converting their
BMPs into GIFs for their homepage. Even without those, there are legions of
self-important blowhards who will spend weeks arguing whether "<section>" is
the semantically best name for a tag.

W3C is not terribly quick at getting things done at the best of times, but the
public lists are even more so.

All that said, I've never heard of a "hold" before, but then I was only ever
on the public lists.

~~~
mrduncan
I agree that allowing users to post to the lists might be harmful in some
cases, but I can't think of a good reason why these lists aren't readable by
the public.

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bonaldi
Looks like they want RDFa, microformats and Canvas (2D) to be stripped:
[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-
html/2010Feb/0349...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-
html/2010Feb/0349.html) and [http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-
archive/2010Feb/0002...](http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-
archive/2010Feb/0002.html)

~~~
radley
It appears that representatives from Google and Opera are the ones playing
politics:

 _At least two members of this team, Ian Hickson[1] and Anne van Kesteren[2],
representing Google and Opera, respectively, have been writing this morning
that Adobe is officially blocking publication of HTML5. This type of
communication could cause FUD among the community of users, and should be
addressed as soon as possible._

~~~
gjm11
How does it appear that _they_ are playing politics, rather than (say) that
Larry Masinter (representing Adobe) is playing politics by claiming that
canvas etc. are out of scope for the WG?

Other participants in the email discussion linked by the parent have said that
these things have already been determined to be in scope for the WG. Larry
Masinter says otherwise. I have no inside information or expertise and do not
propose to try to resolve that dispute :-), but the claims being made by (it
seems) everyone other than Larry Masinter seem plausible prima facie.

~~~
radley
We don't know the full debate. Masinter's actions, even if completely wrong,
still fall within the process.

In contrast, posting inflammatory comments on one's blog does nothing more
than fuel more fanaticism.

~~~
radley
...and lead to massive karma drop for anyone willing to refute the HTML5
fanatics...

------
cwilson
Regardless of this being light on the details it's the responsibility of the
web community to keep this potential issue in the spotlight until Adobe
decides they need to respond and clarify their intentions.

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moron4hire
So we don't know anything about the content of their objection, but we're
going to call Adobe assholes anyway? Maybe it's the W3C blocking the release
of objections, who knows. This article is woefully thin on actual information,
don't jump to any conclusions just yet.

~~~
acg
Certainly recent comments by Adobe's CTO see a future with HTML5
[http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/02/open_access_to_...](http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2010/02/open_access_to_content_and_app.html)

Although Apple's policy is beginning to worry them, it reads more like a HTML5
is a complementary technology rather than a competitor.

~~~
mbreese
But it's so much easier to redefine HTML5 to compliment Flash than it is for
Flash to compliment a complete HTML5 spec.

~~~
acg
HTML may represent new business for adobe. HTML5 has more to worry about from
O/S vendors and browser makers in my view. An example of this is indecision
about video codecs. A rich html spec makes life easier for adobe: their
primary business is tools (I was told this by a Flex evangelist as he gave
people copies of the FlexSDK).

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dangrossman
The links in the post go to password protected pages, so I can't get much
context on this post.

~~~
bensummers
I believe that's the point of the post, to show how it's all taking place
behind closed doors.

~~~
radley
Or it may possible he forgot the links are password protected because he's
part of the discussion and doesn't sign in everyday...

Occam's or conspiracy? _you decide..._

~~~
bensummers
Or his intended audience is people on that list, I suppose.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
No, he's complained publicly about the very existence of these secret lists
before. They links you can't follow are there to drive home the point that
youcant follow them.

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tolmasky
The more things change the more they stay the same.

The standards process is basically _designed_ for this kind of hold up.

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yumraj
This post is so thin on real content that it seems like a FUD. I'm not saying
it is, but almost feels like crying wolf.

I will reserve my opinion till some details are made available and not just
take the word of hixie who is after all an involved and hence non-neutral
party.

------
nickyp
The article is very thin on the particulars, but my guess is that they're
reading the draft on Scribd and a well-known plugin keeps crashing. You can't
approve something if you can't read it IMHO!

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alexandros
Must be hard to be Adobe these days. These guys just cannot get a break.

~~~
bensummers
It's not easy trying to hold back the web and prevent open standards from
making expensive authoring tools redundant, especially when it's in everyone
else's interests for them to fail.

They're doing the best they can. We should admire their persistence.

~~~
ddrouin
It's a funny situation, in the sense that Microsoft did exactly the same thing
on the ECMAScript 4 standard on which Actionscript 3 is based and managed
instead to stall the evolution of the ES standard...

[http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/08/ru-roh-adobe-
screwe...](http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/08/ru-roh-adobe-screwed-by-
ecmascript.html)

~~~
glymor
Everyone focused on Microsoft at the time but Yahoo and others also dissented.
I think for good reason; ES4 is nearly completely different from normal
Javascript (static types, class-based inheritance).

Also Adobe was getting a standard that was what they already had and Mozilla
had a AS3 VM runtime from Adobe. Microsoft would have been starting from
scratch. I don't blame them for blocking it.

(EDIT: If you look at this Apple also marked red to much of ES4:
[http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pFIHldY_CkszsFxMkQORe...](http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pFIHldY_CkszsFxMkQOReAQ&gid=2))

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c00p3r
They still refuse to approve that what they should make was a browser instead
of investing in an outdated middle-layer, or say it differently, a modern
browser now is what flash or java was ought to be? =)

The game of "You need our special VM here" is over.

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nir
Also, I heard that Adobe's CEO totally wore the same shirt three days in a
row! Gross!

