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Security is important by 1,$d · 2010-03-13 13:25 · Score: 1 · on Key Web App Standard Approaches Consensus

The spec has to have a rock-solid security model required for implementors, and a good security test suite must be freely available. Without these, the database will turn out to be a major hack vector. With a great security model, we only have to worry about bugs. As it stands, the spec covers security very lightly.

The spec has these sections that mean people are at least thinking about security. I hope there are actual security experts involved:

4. Privacy
5. Authorization - especially:
5.3 Implementation risks
"Thus, strictly following the origin model described in this specification is important for user security."

If you want this thing to succeed, you have an interest in the security model.

Security is important by 1,$d · 2010-03-13 13:25 · Score: 1 · on Key Web App Standard Approaches Consensus

The spec has to have a rock-solid security model required for implementors, and a good security test suite must be freely available. Without these, the database will turn out to be a major hack vector. With a great security model, we only have to worry about bugs. As it stands, the spec covers security very lightly.

The spec has these sections that mean people are at least thinking about security. I hope there are actual security experts involved:

4. Privacy
5. Authorization - especially:
5.3 Implementation risks
"Thus, strictly following the origin model described in this specification is important for user security."

If you want this thing to succeed, you have an interest in the security model.

Re:Exactly backwards by Arccot · 2010-03-13 12:20 · Score: 1 · on Final Decision Deferred On ".xxx" Domains

People who want a "kid-safe" internet could insist in embedded ratings. Some HTML tag with "xxx, violence" or whatever else they want to put in. Easy to block. Easy to implement. And people don't have to worry about domain squatters trying to register slashdot.xxx to shake down established sites.

Sadly, this used to exist and W3 eliminated it, but I'm not sure why.

PICS was first. Then came POWDER. Then both were dropped. I haven't found a replacement for either.

Re:Exactly backwards by Arccot · 2010-03-13 12:20 · Score: 1 · on Final Decision Deferred On ".xxx" Domains

People who want a "kid-safe" internet could insist in embedded ratings. Some HTML tag with "xxx, violence" or whatever else they want to put in. Easy to block. Easy to implement. And people don't have to worry about domain squatters trying to register slashdot.xxx to shake down established sites.

Sadly, this used to exist and W3 eliminated it, but I'm not sure why.

PICS was first. Then came POWDER. Then both were dropped. I haven't found a replacement for either.

Re:I must have missed something by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-13 09:49 · Score: 2, Informative · on Key Web App Standard Approaches Consensus

What's missing, by the way, in my opinion, to make these REALLY useful, is a simple javascript call to determine if you are currently web connected.

You mean something like
var online = navigator.onLine
as defined in http://www.w3.org/TR/offline-webapps/#related ?

Re:That sounds great. by larry+bagina · 2010-03-13 06:49 · Score: 3, Informative · on Key Web App Standard Approaches Consensus

html 5 already has local storage

Re:Serves the noobs right by rthille · 2010-03-11 07:37 · Score: 1 · on IE 6 & 7 Unpatched Exploit Goes Wild

Still running WorldWideWeb.app here you noobs...

Linked Data? by aharth · 2010-03-09 09:06 · Score: 1 · on Open Data Needs Open Source Tools

Semantic Web technologies (in particular RDF, a graph-structured data format) are ideally suited for publishing data. Also, these technologies facilitate the integration of separate pieces of information; integration is what you want to do if thousands of people start publishing structured data. Linked Data (RDF using HTTP URIs to identify things) is already used by the NYT and the UK government to publish data online.

Re:HTML5 by DarkKnightRadick · 2010-03-09 04:53 · Score: 1 · on What To Expect From HTML5

Alright, while not directly supporting the above statement, Ian is moving toward a "standard" that is determined by the whims of the browser vendors instead of an independent third-party (W3C, WHATWG, what-have-you).

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Jul/0313.html

While not providing direct validation of my complete original statement, which I retract and amend to what I'm stating in this post, it does show an effort on Ian's part to not implement a true standard but a mish-mash of what browser vendors will "allow". Instead of web developers and consumers (no, I don't mean customers) leading the demand for features, the browser vendors (who are supposed to be catering to web developers and consumers) will be. In the end it has the same effect of killing any sort of real standards based development.

The above link provides a plethora of related links which I see no need to reproduce.

window.openDatabase() by tepples · 2010-03-09 00:00 · Score: -1, Troll · on Making Sense of CPU and GPU Model Numbers?

For instance, if you once in a blue moon use Office and never use a database on your PC

If you use Firefox, you use a database. If you use HTML5 web applications, you use a database.

what do you care about how fast/slow your CPU is at them?

If you play high-definition video on YouTube, you exercise a CPU.

HTML5 Web Storage API by tepples · 2010-03-08 07:35 · Score: 1 · on What To Expect From HTML5

Including the ability to store super cookies on your computer, so that corporate America can watch over your shoulder?

Yes. HTML5 has its own super cookies. They're supposed to work along with explicit caching to let a web application work offline.

HTML5 Web Storage API by tepples · 2010-03-08 07:35 · Score: 1 · on What To Expect From HTML5

Including the ability to store super cookies on your computer, so that corporate America can watch over your shoulder?

Yes. HTML5 has its own super cookies. They're supposed to work along with explicit caching to let a web application work offline.

They're skipping 2, 3, and 4 by tepples · 2010-03-08 06:16 · Score: 2, Interesting · on What To Expect From HTML5

I don't want HTML5. I want XHTML2. Get to work on this now.

HTML5 has two syntaxes: SGML-style "HTML Syntax" (Content-type: text/html) and XML (Content-type: application/xhtml+xml). The latter is called XHTML5, and 5 is greater than 2.

Sure is good to know by smittyoneeach · 2010-03-07 15:51 · Score: 1 · on Time To Take the Internet Seriously

It sure is good to know that all of the OWL people http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-features/ have been fannying about until now.
We really should take all of this stuff seriously.
Oh, wait: is that a codephrase indicating that we should commence the final assault on /.?

Re:Not a selling point by buzzn · 2010-03-04 05:06 · Score: 1 · on Technical Objections To the Ogg Container Format

Flash is a problem because it is a vendor standard that doesn't need to compete to survive.

Um, no

It fails to take advantage of hardware acceleration when EVERY OTHER SOLUTION does.

Um, no.

Why am I defending Adobe? Actually, I'm not. I'm fighting laziness.

X3DOM based on WebGL by bernd_semmel · 2010-03-04 04:06 · Score: 1 · on 3D Graphics For Firefox, Webkit

AFAIK there is already a working HTML5 conform 3D implementation based on WebGL and the X3D standard. It's called X3DOM (http://x3dom.org).

There's no need for a separate build of Firefox when an HTML5 conform implementation will work out of the box in Firefox 3.7 via WebGL. There's already an official bug by Sam Ruby (http://intertwingly.net/blog/2009/11/05/Web3D) in the W3C bug tracker (http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8238).

Re:IE8 sucks too. by Simetrical · 2010-02-25 09:28 · Score: 1 · on YouTube To Kill IE6 Support On March 13

Can you give specific examples of where IE8 sucks at implementing the final (non-draft) W3C standards, such as HTML 4.01 and CSS 2.1?

Why shouldn't they implement draft standards? You do realize that to get to Proposed Recommendation status, at least one implementation is required? W3C drafts are not meant to remain unimplemented until they reach Candidate Recommendation stage.

By the way, CSS 2.1 is a Candidate Recommendation, so it's not final. And it only even reached that level in September 2009, less than six months ago. Focusing on "final" specs makes no sense – large W3C specs can take a decade to get from first Working Draft to Recommendation. E.g., CSS3 Selectors was a Working Draft in April 2000, and hasn't yet reached Recommendation. Ian Hickson, editor of HTML5, estimates that it will reach Recommendation in 2022 (it was started in 2004). Waiting for REC before implementing would be crazy.

Re:Bandwidth is a killer by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-23 22:01 · Score: 0 · on DirectX 11 Coming To Browser Games

Procedural textures are vastly smaller but are rather labour intensive to create

Hey, you never know, it could re-kickstart the "procedural algorithm compiler" thing again, the ultimate goal of compression.
I remember seeing one a few years back, wish i remembered the name of it. All i know is it just crashed when i tried opening an image...
But i doubt this will happen anyway, it would need to be tested in trillions of use cases to make sure it doesn't break.
And internet connections would probably be decent enough by the time it was actually usable...

What will probably happen is LocalStorage is extended upon so that games (and applications) are allowed to download larger chunks of files to client at once.
This will be a user prompt, "This Application requires X MBs of space, Okay, Cancel". (and the usual "download speeds, blah blah 3 million years on 56k")
Currently, the spec only mentions a prompt if the storage is low. (which is set at 5MBs at the moment)

HTML5 Webstorage

Re:Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-22 11:55 · Score: 0 · on Free Software Foundation Urges Google To Free VP8

Easy -- the web browser itself has no business being a video decoder. It needs to call up the proper OS-resident function to play back the video in question, or fail, should that OS not have the knowledge to play that video format.

Similarly, the web browser does not need to provide a video driver, a mouse driver, an audio CODEC, a file system, a hard disc driver, a keyboard driver. These are all OS jobs. When a web browser takes on any of them, it'll at best do the job poorly.

My desktop PC can play back 1080/60p H.264 using only 12% CPU and the latest H.264 OS-resident CODEC. Why in the world would I bother with a web browser trying to do this internally and sucking up the whole machine just to play an inferior video? This is why Mozilla's idea is so very flawed... solving the video problem is not the web browser's job.

It is not the job of the OS. My web browser displays a variety of open image formats. Why is video any different? The problem here is that are very few open video formats. H.264 is a closed format and closed formats are diametrically opposed to the World Wide Web Consortium's goals. It's not worth compromising the web by embracing closed formats.

Re:Problem still remains by Anonymous Coward · 2010-02-22 10:55 · Score: 0 · on Free Software Foundation Urges Google To Free VP8

The crux of the HTML5 video problem is not H.264 versus Ogg Theora. It is closed formats versus open formats. The essential goal of the World Wide Web Consortium's patent policy is:

In order to promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented on a Royalty-Free (RF) basis. Subject to the conditions of this policy, W3C will not approve a Recommendation if it is aware that Essential Claims exist which are not available on Royalty-Free terms.

The licencing for H.264 is wholly incompatible with this goal. H.264 is not a "web video standard" and, with its current licencing, it never can be. Closed formats are diametrically opposed to the fundamental design principles that make the web what it is. The only formats that have any place on the web are open formats. It's simply not worth compromising the open web by embracing closed formats.

Re:Support not ending for IE by eihab · 2010-02-20 12:02 · Score: 1 · on Google Phasing Out Gears For HTML5

However I wouldn't blame MS for this quite yet. The W3C was supposed to come out with something conclusive by now. Sure we have a good idea of what will be in HTML 5, but a good idea and a couple of dollars might get you a cup coffee at Starbucks. i.e. good ideas disappear out of final specs and products all the time.

But see, web standards (or at least HTML5's) are really based on what browser vendors and content producers are doing right now.

The process roughly goes like this:
- Someone throws and idea on the mailing list and maybe a demo/implementation
- People argue back and forth
- Someone possibly comes up with a better solution that satisfies some other vendor
- More bitching and moaning
- Some consensus/compromise is reached with a few implementations of it already in browsers and it becomes part of the standard

No one sits around dreaming up what HTML should be like and then dictate that to all the browser vendors as the ultimate implementation, it's totally the other way around.

This is basically why we had the Ogg Theora vs. H.264 war going on. Apple and Google went with (that is, implemented) H.264 while Mozilla went with Ogg Theora. What ended up happening was the codec specification was dropped from the spec because a consensus could not be reached between all parties involved.

MS needs to get off of its high horse and start implementing and suggesting features _today_, they can argue the merits of the spec all they want but they have one of two options, be a road block and passively ignore the discussion or take the community head-on, actively engage them and offer superior solutions.

Chris Wilson from Microsoft wrote an essay on the mailing list arguing the dropping of the version number in HTML5. I agree with him that we need a version in there, but his argument is coming from the wrong reasons (not wanting to break lousy IE specific hacked websites).

Here's a link to that essay, take a look and count how many times he said "the market leader" in there.

Re:wow by hkmwbz · 2010-02-13 00:32 · Score: 1 · on Anti-Piracy Windows 7 Update Phones Home Quarterly

I think you're full of it. Microsoft is a key committed member of the CSS WG and continue to work in good faith helping the group.

Yeah, that must be why people were getting out of the CSS WG because of Microsoft's behavior: 1, 2, 3, 4

Since you're big on the whole standards thing, you might like to know that IE8 is the only fully CSS 2.1 standards compliant browser at the moment.

Nope. That is a blatant lie if I ever saw one.

With regard to ECMAScript4, Microsoft had some fundamental differences with whether it was worth expanding the language considering the legacy baggage and the need to add modern scripting features.

Actually, ECMAScript 4 was seen as a threat against Silverlight: 1, 2

Re:wow by hkmwbz · 2010-02-13 00:32 · Score: 1 · on Anti-Piracy Windows 7 Update Phones Home Quarterly

I think you're full of it. Microsoft is a key committed member of the CSS WG and continue to work in good faith helping the group.

Yeah, that must be why people were getting out of the CSS WG because of Microsoft's behavior: 1, 2, 3, 4

Since you're big on the whole standards thing, you might like to know that IE8 is the only fully CSS 2.1 standards compliant browser at the moment.

Nope. That is a blatant lie if I ever saw one.

With regard to ECMAScript4, Microsoft had some fundamental differences with whether it was worth expanding the language considering the legacy baggage and the need to add modern scripting features.

Actually, ECMAScript 4 was seen as a threat against Silverlight: 1, 2

Re:wow by hkmwbz · 2010-02-13 00:32 · Score: 1 · on Anti-Piracy Windows 7 Update Phones Home Quarterly

I think you're full of it. Microsoft is a key committed member of the CSS WG and continue to work in good faith helping the group.

Yeah, that must be why people were getting out of the CSS WG because of Microsoft's behavior: 1, 2, 3, 4

Since you're big on the whole standards thing, you might like to know that IE8 is the only fully CSS 2.1 standards compliant browser at the moment.

Nope. That is a blatant lie if I ever saw one.

With regard to ECMAScript4, Microsoft had some fundamental differences with whether it was worth expanding the language considering the legacy baggage and the need to add modern scripting features.

Actually, ECMAScript 4 was seen as a threat against Silverlight: 1, 2

Re:Let's just ditch JavaScript. by ChunderDownunder · 2010-02-12 12:33 · Score: 1 · on Opera 10.50 Beta Out, With Competitive JavaScript

but even of those who are not, some would promote Python, some Ruby, etc.

You say that like language diversity is a bad thing. HTML's SCRIPT tag has supported multiple languages for some time. The only problem being that the only alternative to JavaScript was something only IE supported.

Assuming some, if not all, of these new-fangled JS virtual machines, operated via an intermediate 'bytecode', support for multiple dynamic languages shouldn't be too hard if enthusiasts of Ruby, Python & others do the legwork.

Target the open source ones and too bad if your clients use Internet Explorer. It's a new decade; browser wars are so 1990s.