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The ECMA standards body rules section 1.4 say that if a company shows up with a patent and doesn't license it with "reasonable, non-discriminatory" license practices, then the standard will be cancelled.

Back when DVD-ROMs were first developed, pleas to include "linking areas," also called "run-in" on magnetic media, were ignored. This meant that there would be no space to write bits to allow the data clock to be recovered. This is not a problem with a continuously written disc, as the "earlier" data can be used.

However, with most technologies, the start of writing can vary hundreds of bits from its nominal location. This means that if you write sector 1, and later write sector 2 on its tail, there is no way to align the data clock to the data in time to read the data of sector 2, since the first bits are used to recover the clock.

DVD-RAM addressed this problem by introducing a new format. There are small embossed address headers to mark where each sector might be, and a small written run-in for each recorded sector. This media is highly susceptible to scratches, since the embossed headers are easily obscured by dust or a scratch. Also, having the embossed headers means that these discs are INCOMPATIBLE with DVD-ROM drives.

DVD-RAM discs also use land/groove recording. This means changes to the servo mechanism just to follow the track. A DVD-ROM drive must add in special reader circuitry to handle the data coding, different block architecture (ROMs use blocks of 16 sectors), different servos for land/groove structure, etc. DVD-RAM is endorsed by the DVD Forum, so is the "official" format.

DVD-RW is also endorsed by the DVD Forum, but for video use. Its intended application for reliable use is to not put data in the first block where you first start writing (it becomes your run-in). The "link point" where writing begins and ends occurs about 1.5 sectors into the 16 sector block. This means that the first 1.5 sectors, while readable, have unrelated data to what you just recorded! Also, some amount of the beginning of what you did write will be unreadable because the data clock needs to be recovered, and the words synchronized to a sync mark. Realistically, the first two sectors will be trashed in any sector that contains a link point. These sectors are recoverable by ECC, but it severely reduces the amount of recovery that can be done on your real data!

DVD-RW uses a shallow, low frequency, wobbled groove with some high frequency "ticks" (occurring at a low frequency) to gain some positional accuracy. These ticks are extremely susceptible to dirt, etc.

Overall, DVD-RW is best used as a re-usable DVD-R.

DVD+RW uses a shallow wobbled groove. However, this wobble is a continuous high frequency, and uses phase modulation to contain address information. The link point is a few bytes from the end of the sector, meaning that only a few bytes are sacrificed to the ECC gods (instead of 4K in the case of DVD-RW), and sufficient data exists to act as the run-in for the newly written sector.

The logical layout of DVD+RW is identical to the logical layout of DVD-ROMs. Any drive that conforms to the DVD-ROM standards will read a DVD+RW disc. Unfortunately, some manufacturers took shortcuts (like assuming a low reflectivity disc is a dual layer disc, rather than reading the proper parameter from the media).

The design characteristics of DVD+RW are such that it works well for randomly written data, and is compatible with DVD-ROM drives.

Standards that describe these DVD formats are available from ECMA.

Disclaimer: I work for HP, and used to work in their DVD group. Opinions expressed here are mine, not HPs.

Try this.

ftp://ftp.ecma.ch/ecma-st/Ecma-130.pdf

Petreley is fairly entertaining. Unfortunately like all pundits he has a tendency to oversimplify and be "alarmist" some times. In this article he is basically saying...

The question is... so?

The scheme that he proceeds to lay out, that MS will let Ximian implement some part of the Passport scheme and then break the protocol would not "...wipe out the threat of open source."

The two things simply do not follow.

In order to connect them, you have to follow some weird train of logic that, only e-commerce matters, therefore only Passport matters, and that the Open-Source movement will only have one implementation of them that matters and when MS pulls the rug out from under us, we're all going to hell. Most of which doesn't make any sense.

From the article:

Ximian's effort reproduces only the development environment in open source. It does nothing to reproduce or replace Passport.

So then what the hell are we talking about Passport for? What is Ximian actually doing?

What Ximian is working on implementing and MS has actually submitted to ECMA-TC39-G2/G3 is C# and the CLI, which Petreley only barely mentions!

Bottom line whether or not Ximian succeeds at porting .NET and subsequently they or somebody else ports some Ms.Passport.* classes to their platform, it will not sound the death knell for Open-Source software everywhere (Geez, it sounds even more non-sensical when you write it out).

The drafts of the standards that Ximian is actaully working on can be found here.

In the meantime if you want to make up conspiracy theories about e-commerce ask yourself, "What are Visa/Mastercard up to? Aren't almost all e-commerce transactions done with credit cards?"

Petreley is fairly entertaining. Unfortunately like all pundits he has a tendency to oversimplify and be "alarmist" some times. In this article he is basically saying...

The question is... so?

The scheme that he proceeds to lay out, that MS will let Ximian implement some part of the Passport scheme and then break the protocol would not "...wipe out the threat of open source."

The two things simply do not follow.

In order to connect them, you have to follow some weird train of logic that, only e-commerce matters, therefore only Passport matters, and that the Open-Source movement will only have one implementation of them that matters and when MS pulls the rug out from under us, we're all going to hell. Most of which doesn't make any sense.

From the article:

Ximian's effort reproduces only the development environment in open source. It does nothing to reproduce or replace Passport.

So then what the hell are we talking about Passport for? What is Ximian actually doing?

What Ximian is working on implementing and MS has actually submitted to ECMA-TC39-G2/G3 is C# and the CLI, which Petreley only barely mentions!

Bottom line whether or not Ximian succeeds at porting .NET and subsequently they or somebody else ports some Ms.Passport.* classes to their platform, it will not sound the death knell for Open-Source software everywhere (Geez, it sounds even more non-sensical when you write it out).

The drafts of the standards that Ximian is actaully working on can be found here.

In the meantime if you want to make up conspiracy theories about e-commerce ask yourself, "What are Visa/Mastercard up to? Aren't almost all e-commerce transactions done with credit cards?"

> There is no point in creating a standard (e.g. ECMA standard) if that standard can only be implemented by (or with the consent of) one corporation.

If I'm not mistaken, following that logic, ECMA's specs for CD-ROM (Yellow Book[?]) are pointless becaues the CD Book Standards can't be implemented without the consent of Philips / Sony ...

There is also Windows 2000, which runs all Windows programs better than anything else mentioned in this thread!

Assume that I (and perhaps other users connected to my system) want to run apps designed for working POSIX-compatible systems (not NT's bastardized "POSIX" subsystem) while I'm running Win32 apps. Assume further that I have already forked over three months' wages ($300) for Windows 2000. Apparent choices include

• Run Linux on Windows 2000. This works through VMWare ($300; introductory offer has expired) or through Cygwin and has stability problems because the virtualizer is running on a kernel whose kernel-mode video drivers are one bit short of a proverbial byte. And there's still the virtualization overhead.
• Run Windows 2000 on Linux. Again, VMWare costs $300. It also doesn't support DirectX, which is used by several multimedia apps.
• Run Wine on Linux. Wine is a subsystem for x86-based Linux and BSD systems with an X server that implements the ECMA Win32 standard. There are about as many incompatibilities between Wine and Win32 apps as there are between ntoskrnl and VMWare. It's also a bit faster than VMWare because the apps are merely running on a different subsystem instead of a partial emulator.
• Run Linux on my server and Windows 2000 on another box, which costs $1000 but adds the advantage of being able to run Direct3D apps.

Unless .NET is an openly specified standard, it may as well be Windows to me.

but that's the whole point of MS implementing .NET on linux: they must implement the platform on at least two systems before it can be approved as a standard by the ECMA.

if you really want to see an example of vendor lock in, check here.

What language used to own it?

In a sense, HTML used to "own" PHP just as it effectively owns EcmaScript. Go to OSDN SourceForge and follow any of the Show Source links at the bottom of the pages.

.NET isn't just a response to Java. Think back to the findings of fact in the anti-trust trial. The thing that scares Microsoft even more than free software is "the middleware threat".

Microsoft's core asset is it's ubiquity, and any cross-platform middleware layer is a threat to that. They've been beating out brushfires on that front since at least "the browser wars" (Browser war is hell, by the way. Pray you never have to send your sons off to serve on the front lines. I lost my best buddy to a stray MIME type. One minute he was standing right next to me, the next minute all the helper apps in the world couldn't save him.)

MS has decided it can't afford to go after each new entrant into this territory, so it's going to have to colonise it. So we'll get a binary-only stripped-down windows emulator that runs on only those platforms MS feels it needs to support. My guess is this will be exactly the same platforms they've ported IE to, with promises to port to others once certain technical issues (related to the OS - FUD) have been addressed.

As for Microsoft's claims that .NET will be standards-based: anybody using ECMAScript? Isn't it great? Now nobody needs to be scared to use JavaScript anymore. Both Microsoft and Netscape worked on the spec, so obviously all browsers from them since have stuck to it, right? And doesn't CSS work like a dream in all the browsers that trumpet their support of this open standard? Microsoft (and Netscape, and Sun, and...) have been playing this game of "Kick the ball, Charlie Brown" with us for years. That's one reason why you should stick to free software.

MS can't leverage their monopoly if anybody can get their hands on the lever. If they are counting on the death of the desktop, and essentially giving their next platform away for free, you can be certain they've got a strategy for turning their dominance into a revenue stream. Whatever the strategy is, it's going to be bad news. Learn the lesson. Microsoft don't play nice, so don't play with them.

• CD (Orange, Green, Red book) are all still secret. You can not find them on internet
• DVD + Next.Gen. DVD (Confidential standards. Kept a (trade) secret by the DVD Forum!)
• Dolby AC3 Digital Audio [And with it all Dolby sandards]
• ISO9660 (for some time, it's ECMA119 now and downloadable for free, but ISO charge[sd] about $1000 for it)
• MacroVision (though I don't think it would have caught on in the Open Source world :) )
• FAT32 and NTFS (eeeh... well...)

And these are just the standards I could think of in a second. I think more 'standards' are secret and have to be paid for than one would think.

I looked up the ECMAScript Language Specification. (Thanks for mentioning it; I had not heard of it before.) It is careful to point out that getYear() is not officially part of the specification, but the definition given is based on Netscape's getYear(), not Microsoft's. The function it recommends that is part of the specification is getFullYear().

Is ECMA a legitimate standards body?
Are they producing standards that help to advance the state of the art?

The reason I ask this is because my only previous knowledge of ECMA is the certification that JavaScript (aka ECMAscript) went through. If memory serves, the ECMA group was chosen over other more well known standards organizations because it was thought to be easier to influence, thereby orchestrating the outcome. Ever since then, I have wondered about this organization.

Now, ECMA is in the news again. But, this time, a Slashdot community member posts a link to the ECMA Web Site. So I have the opportunity to check out the roster of member companies. If you look at them, you will note that practically every one is a multinational that is not based in Europe.

I guess that this point, in itself, doesn't say much. Except that there must have been a much bigger number of true European companies in ECMA back when it was founded in 1961. But, then I notice that at least one European computer manufacturer that I know of, Bull isn't a member. Neither is Nokia, although Ericsson is.

There is an organizing body in the sport of boxing known as the IBF. It was created as an alternative to the WBA and WBC, and seems to exist for the sole purpose of having an alternate slate of champions who can challenge one of the more established sanctioning bodies' champions.

So, my ultimate question is, does ECMA serve the same role in the technology world that the IBF appears to serve in the boxing world?
--

Dave Aiello

Javascript 1.3 is compliant with ECMA-262 (now also ISO-16262). The standard calls it ECMAscript, but its basically the same thing.

More info at http://www.ecma.ch/stand/ecma-262.htm

"You souldn't assume that there are only 2 browsers."

Good point -- but more precisely, we shouldn't have to make assumptions at all on how many browsers there are. That is, we should be able to write standards-compliant pages once, and have them formatted appropriately in each browser. Of the two largest browsers, Netscape is far the less compliant; it also lags behind Opera, and even Lynx. "Where is the standard definition of Java Script?"

http://www.ecma.ch/stand/ecma-262.htm -- ECMA is a European standards board; this is their standardized version of the core language, including the input of Netscape and Microsoft (IIRC) employees. Note that it standardizes the language, and not the object model the language manipulates.

The HTTP Document Object Model -- http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DOM-Level-1/ -- is the W3 standard for the object model, complete with recommendations for Javascript language bindings.

IE purports total adherence to the HTML DOM, I believe, though I haven't used the interface, as such, to know one way or another. I do know it is more complete than Netscape's. Both browsers' javascript is, I believe, ECMA-262-compliant.

phil

Netscape is even more incompetent, of course. Their "parser" can't even survive omitting optional tags.

And ECMA-262 is now the standard for JavaScript, freely available no less.