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Schema.org — Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! Agree On Markup Vocabulary
aabelro writes "Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! have decided to propose a common markup vocabulary, Schema.org, based on the Microdata format, simplifying the job of webmasters who want to give meaning to their web pages' content."
Manu Sporny, chair of the W3C group that created RDFa, added his (personal) dissenting opinion about Schema, calling it a 'false choice,' and saying, "The entire Web community should decide which features should be supported – not just Microsoft or Google or Yahoo."
Microsoft will break this one, too.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Right. You've got to include Facebook.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
One of the reasons why Google was able to tromp AltaVista was that AltaVista's search was based completley on the MetaData tag of the html page, and Google ignored the MetaData tag. The reason why? Website administrator were putting false information into the MetaData tag in hopes of generating more web crawler search hits. Google decided to go off of what was actually being presetned on the page, and we all found that to be more useful.
indeed. they had a chance to do this right when defining rdf and xml (two concepts that should be complementary,
but are completely detatched), and they pretty much failed to deliver anything that qualified as 'sematic web', not that
xml hasn't found plenty of other uses.
skimming the proposals, they both seem less than ideal for both authors and analyzers, but basically
the same. who can really fault an industry group for floating a standard without wanting to get stuck
in a decade of w3c limbo?
For those out of the loop: this is funnier when you are aware of a certain alarmingly long schedule proposed by Ian Hickson, which would not see HTML 5 completely finished until 2020 or 2022 depending on your definition.
Incidentally, this problem is similar to why the Athenians abandoned democracy (lack of rapid response) and has been presented as an explanation for why Lisp isn't as popular as it once was (endless disagreements about how to do things.)
The really remarkable part, though, is that they're making any progress at all with HTML5, so some kudos is in order.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
It really is of no use if the person browsing the site doesn't use it. Seems like browser developers should be an important part of this equation. Google = Chrome, MS = IE....so where does Mozilla stand?
I, for one, welcome our new mark-up vocabulary overlords.
I am a whore and have to do whatever the big guys say, because I want their traffic. Ok, so I admit it.
But dammit, did it have to be microdata? I already mark up with microformat classes and RDFa (both the sortof standardized namespaces and Google's) and Google was handling it pretty well, and every once in a while it looked like Yahoo grokked it too. Microdata was the ugly stepchild third choice, the least well-supported one, with the fewest number of parsers out there in the wild.. So I left that one out, because nobody cared. Now it's going to be The One?
I have better things to do than add Yet Another fucking attribute to my generated HTML which is already bloated with otherwise unnecessary classes and properties and typeofs. Now I'm going to have itemscope and itemtype attributes too, huh? Just how many characters long can we make each element become, just so that everything can make sense of it? Fuck you guys. No seriously, fuck you. Yes, I'm going to do it anyway, but even so, fuck you.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
ooo, snide Perl 6 remark would go here if I were immature
Not really all that remarkable. The main progress comes from the whole WhatWG efforts which in turn is basically the major browser makers saying "Screw you moving-like-molasses people and your incompatible XHTML 2.0, we'll just do things the way we agree to do them and everybody else can follow along or stay behind."
Same story here, except now it's not the major browser makers, but the major search engine companies - who want to be able to more easily index information. Why wait for what webmasters and users want, when your search engine(s) pretty much control the market and the webmaster really has little choice but to either follow along or stay behind?
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as they all get along and the things introduced aren't wonderful in principle but a nightmare in practice (frames, anyone?)
Note that the system used is very much in line with HTML5 veering well away from the XHTML 2.0 changes, in that rather than introducing new elements that a browser or other parser could easily choke on, it introduces new properties which are easily ignored.
I say 'be careful with Microsoft' because if my memory serves me well, Microsoft had some agreement with now defunct SUN Microsystems over Java and its use...that was until SUN realized that Microsoft had a hidden agenda.
Nothing will prevent Microsoft from attempting to pull off what I will call a 'SUN moment.'
ooo, snide Perl 6 remark would go here if I were immature
Perl, wasn't that an early pre-release beta of Python...?
"Three signs shall there be before the end: the duke of atoms shall walk forever, the sixth pearl be released, and the freeman lift his crowbar thrice..."
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Because they're not a search engine?
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
It does seem true to me that in general, if someone says "Wait, not enough people participated in making that decision!!!" they
.cx domain they want to submit for your consideration.
-don't actually care about the number of people making the decision so much as they care that they were not ONE of that number
-are more interested in trying to sound smart than doing anything.
or
-are opposed for some reason to the outcome of the decision but don't have any really convincing arguments to make against it
"The entire Web community should decide which features should be supported." Yeah, uh, the internet troll association just called. The features they want are whatever features no one else wants, and the features they're opposed to are any features that anyone else wants. Also they have some pictures from the
We also made a suggestion box for features to be supported, but they're all "FRIST SUGGESTION POST!!!1!!!!" for some reason.
Oh, and since we're consulting the whole community, the RIAA, MPAA, and Sony have several boxes of suggestions for features, but you can't look at them, they're mega-super-duper secret. I've just been sued for even mentioning the suggestions' existences.
Terms of service
This is a contract between you and each of the sponsors of Schema.org: Google, Inc., Yahoo, Inc., and Microsoft Corporation (referred to collectively in this agreement as the "Sponsors", "we" or "us"). By using the Schema.org website (the "Website") you agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions (the "Terms of Service").
Changes in Website and Terms and Conditions; Change in Schema
We may modify or terminate the Website, for any reason, and without notice. We also reserve the right to modify these Terms of Service from time to time without notice, and you expressly agree to be bound by such modifications when posted on the Website.
This legalese basically says: By using the schema.org website, (esp. their schemas) you agree to whatever we want forever. THE END.
Even Facebook's horrid TOS agreement is better for you than this, at least you can terminate Facebook's agreement.
I for one rebel against our Gigantic Corporate Lawyer-wielding privacy-and-competition-hating overlords. If I can't get past the TOS page, I'll just stick to RDFa. Just added "0.0.0.0 schema.org" to my hosts file just in case I get link-baited into agreeing to that evil evil evil TOS.
Creating new versions of HTML has increasingly become the proverbial lipstick on the proverbial pig. But now they've made browsers into application platform and all the horrors and inadequacies are being magnified.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
At least now we'll have a consistent way of marking up dry cleaning and volcanoes.
I find it funny that yahoo even attended. They are no longer anything more than a front-end to byng with msn-style news (read: ignored) and an e-mail service that is quickly dying just as quickly.
Since when is Apple a search engine?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I'm actually ok with google deciding things.
I'm not. Don't trust any company any further than you can throw them. Google has already walked pretty far down the path of corporate evil.
It doesn't matter what standard they float. It will be dumped in less than five years anyway for the next big gimmick.. I remember a time when real standards would last 50 years or more. You know.. like film, phones, roads, electricity, NTSC, PAL, ohm's law, arithmetic, spelling of words, money...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Note: poster takes one sentence from the wikipedia summary, and infers that the article cited supports her (?) claim. In fact, the sentence referred to reads: "One downside was that the new democracy was less capable of rapid response." The downside is not mentioned again in the lengthy section. Many other criticisms of Athenian democracy are discussed at much greater length (including its extreme severity, its overreaching its own laws, and its conviction of Socrates) than the one she (?) chooses to highlight.
In conclusion, "lack of rapid response" was not "why the Athenians abandoned democracy", as the poster blithely asserts; the source cited provides no supporting evidence for the claim.
I apologise; it appears that I conflated some details of the Four Hundred with the democracy that it interrupted.
You could have been more polite about it, though.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
A big part of his complaint is that RDFa scales better than Microdata which is what Schema.org uses, so both should be supported. Microdata is part of HTML5, and is an extension of Microforms, created exactly because RDFa is considered too complex.
This is exactly a case of WhatWG producing workable standards and W3C creating design by committee monstrosities.
Brilliant idea, then quality decisions will be made, just like in our political system.
Can someone explain to me why there is a need for a separate metadata vocabulary?
Wasn't this the issue that XML, XSD, XSLT and XSLT-FO supposed to address? Document verbiage aside, don't these families adequately cover the issue of structure, and semantics?
If the issue is to teach the browser/search engine, the document semantics -- can't they (MS,Yahoo,Google) actually parse XML for common dictionary words and build semantics themselves? Why make humans do all the tedious annotations? They can probably publish standard XSD for people to structure XMLs... no?
well, i think its a bit far afield, but thanks about the article about lisp. i still believe that its an historical accident rather
than something fundamental about expressive language frameworks, but alot of points rang true.
here, there is just a syntactic requirement to express relational data inline, or less, just tags. they aren't event discussing any
overreaching semantic system where such declarations might be said to have some meaning.
here is the antipode to lisp, billion dollar multi-year arguments about whether we should say or
I hate to say this but when you have Bing, Google, and Yahoo saying that if I clean the dishes, use microdata, I can get laid in a search engine sense, I'm sorry the dishes will be cleaned. I don't know if this is live but let's be honest, they have us by our proverbial search engine balls. The days of free and fair elections, I mean fair SEO are as dead as Rep. Weiner's political career. Do you realize that he never had sex with any of those women. I'm not sure about you but if I'm going to ruin my career and my marriage, I'm going to at the very least factor the equation, define PI until I pass out, prove that (a)ss + (b)reasts = c
Couldn't get the superscripts to work.
Apple does not need a search engine, all information is pre approved for your consumption =)
I hope the companies would just put their efforts in creating a semantic web, instead of trying to hack-patch html by adding random meta-data for the purpose of search. Seriously.. focus people!
Focus!
The last person to mod me down is a rotten egg..... there.. that should do it..
Polite? This is Slashdot. But to be fair, being polite rarely gets anything other than passed over here.
You mean... the entire web community "can" or "will" be the ones to decide whether they will cooperate with the source of most, if not almost all, of their traffic? And what happens when Google, Microsoft and Yahoo agree to index the syntax they agreed to propose? That's a lot of weight to be pitted against. Even more weight than that (frankly, Apple and Adobe) which undermined the "web community" by choosing h.264 over any free alternative. Don't mistake the fact that there's a "standards process" with "public comment" for anything resembling the will of the people who have to actually consume this stuff.
And don't get me wrong; most of HTML5 is a welcome departure from the W3C direction, despite being dictated by a handful of huge corporations. It's just silly to pretend that that departure came from anything other than a handful of huge corporations.
The great thing about metadata is that it provides worlds of opportunity to differentiate featuresets while maintaining interoperability; that is, to offer your custom functionality beyond the scope of the standard, rather than contrary to it.
Yahoo has been a pretty prominent contributor to developer tools for "web 2.0" and have probably had a great deal more impact than their market position would predict. That influence isn't going to vanish overnight.
Apple is heavily invested in metadata, is a browser vendor, and is almost comically reputed for their interfaces which marry power and ease-of-use. They *heavily* influence web standards. They have weight to throw around here.
Metadata like this is not intended for browsers. It's intended for webmasters to indicate to search engines what exactly is in their pages. Sure, you could write a plugin for a browser which used this data for some purpose, but the real purpose is improved indexing by search engines. And Apple doesn't have a search engine. Being "invested in metadata" is such a vague, pointless claim. Who the fuck cares? This metadata in particular is describing websites to search engines. Apple is entirely not invested in that, short of the markup on their own sites, which makes them a user just as much as anyone else with a website.
...they change the schema? I can't see any version numbers in the tags so how do the search engines know which version of the schema you mean, or will they continue supporting every version of every schema forever? Or will we all have to edit all our webpages in vi every time they bring out a new schema version to keep all our tags up to date?
Korma: Good
Is if amazon, walmart and ebay decided to come up with a common tagging system for shopping searches.
This does not change how web page are displayed only how they are tagged for search engines.
Having the top 3 search engines in the world come to a common agreement is not a bad thing.
These three search engines have represented 95%+ of the search engine market for the last 5 years.
When 95% of the market decides on a common standard that is THE standard regardless of any hand waving
by the "de jure" standards body
The computing world moves at a MUCH faster pace because it needs to evolve... 50 year computer standards would be a TERRIBLE idea.
Remember to maintain your supply of
You are not the "entire web community". You seem to have not realised this last time, when everyone implemented the WHATWG's HTML standard instead of your XHTML 2.0 pet project. Please get relevant or get bent.
To be entirely fair, it actually does make a lot of sense for browsers to consume stuff like this -- microformats would've been my first choice, but whatever. Consider: Right now, browsers can and do support discovering RSS feeds related to the current page. There's also a spec somewhere for a "universal edit button". Other things that might be relevant are hcalendar and hcard -- sure, search engines could consume these, but it'd also be cool to have my browser discover these things and communicate with my calendar or contact list.
But I don't know of any browsers actually doing this, other than the RSS bit, without third-party extensions -- and this, in particular, was all about search engines, whether or not the standards involved would be relevant to browsers.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I just spent few mins looking at schema.org and their proposed schema. The way, I look at it, they are just extending existing HTML tags (in spirit of, everything is XML eventually), so that they can extract meaningful information from HTML tag. Of course, it will help their spiders and search processors, but in end, it will help average web user, who will get exact results.
Take a example of typical e-commerce site. These days, those sites have jump through hoops on "regular" basis, to provide product feed to google/bing/yahoo or any shopping comparison site. And almost everyone wants to do it, to get more page hits, more visibility. Now, if under plan of schema.org proposed extensions, spiders can parse their actual html pages and index product information, along with "latest" price. Hence no need to feeds and consumer always see prices on google products, as it is actually on retailer website.
This same concept can be applied on different scenarios like emergency updates, latest news as it happens, any kind of status updates.
Google has already starting showing flight times on their search. (i guess, largely due to fact, they got ITA) but using schema.org, they can show more relevant information for other text.
Theoretically, companies like google or any other one, can build whole new genre of webapps.
HTML and CSS are used as a presentation markup language. Adding "meaning" to those is approaching it backward. First, mark up the document / data, using XML or RDF (for this argument the preference doesn't necessarily matter). Then, use XSLT to provide a transform into the presentation language of your choice. I guess we could argue that XHTML _is_ XML at its core, though, so adding attributes to add "meaning" might be doing what I said, anyway. As far as 'why are the big companies agreeing to this, why isn't everyone consulted?' argument - hey, at least we're making progress. If one large group of pages is marked up in a standard way, then that's a lot of "meaning" that can suddenly be extracted and used in our apps / widgets / mashups / things-to-be-named-later-when-someone-thinks-them-up. In that sense, I'm all for it; let's get started! There's also a mechanical precedent for this: think back to when the auto industry in the US decided to standardize the "markup" of wheels with a 5-bolt lug nut pattern, spaced the same way - suddenly wheels were interchangeable, and making special chromed add-ons for people was economically more feasible too. They didn't consult a body of international automobile enthusiasts - Ford, GM, and Chrysler pretty much drove that one.
and the Norseman's codes shall possess and dominate the workbench ciphering apparatus for all peoples in that year,
(pauses to snort more volcanic fumes)
and the Orders of the Red Whorl and the Arch of Blueness shall claim the deceived followers from the once-righteous wealthy African merchant, for his falling into great sin, of confounding the Portal of Knowledge with his evil Unification spell that bends the eyesight and hinders the labors of man
So yahoo is to blame for this bloated web 2.0 buzzword shit that sprang up? Where simple damm text pages now take megs instead of a couple k?
The tools can certainly be used that way, but don't dictate it. YUI is modular, so it can be pretty lightweight while still providing good library functionality over the standard DOM. That said, it probably isn't best suited for "text pages", and neither is most "web 2.0" type functionality. Blame the library collectors, not the library developers.
Slightly off-topic but...
Ancient authors were almost invariably from an elite background for whom giving poor and uneducated people power over their betters seemed a reversal of the proper, rational order of society. For them the demos in democracy meant not the whole people, but the people as opposed to the elite. Instead of seeing it as a fair system under which 'everyone' has equal rights, they saw it as the numerically preponderant poor tyrannizing over the rich.
LOL some things never change...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Metadata like this is not intended for browsers. It's intended for webmasters to indicate to search engines what exactly is in their pages.
Why the heck not? What law of nature determines that a "search engine" (whatever that is) is permitted to build powerful data-driven services, but that a "browser" (whatever that is) is not? RDFa specifies, in its abstract: "When publishers can express this data more completely, and when tools can read it, a new world of user functionality becomes available, letting users transfer structured data between applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to improve the user experience: an event on a web page can be directly imported into a user's desktop calendar; a license on a document can be detected so that users can be informed of their rights automatically; a photo's creator, camera setting information, resolution, location and topic can be published as easily as the original photo itself, enabling structured search and sharing." Microdata uses, throughout its specification, the term "user agent", the same term the rest of the HTML specification uses to refer to browser et al.
Sure, you could write a plugin for a browser which used this data for some purpose
Or, you know, a browser which does so directly. Why not? Taking one of the examples from the RDFa abstract, I would imagine Apple has great interest in providing in-browser capabilities to interact between calendar web applications and iCal. This kind of metadata allows just that; why is it not the "real purpose"?
Being "invested in metadata" is such a vague, pointless claim. Who the fuck cares?
Let me clarify then: a huge, enormous part of their business model is driven by software and integration systems which leverage metadata. Their investment in the web is sure to reflect that.
This metadata in particular is describing websites to search engines.
Quite plainly it's not. It's describing structured data to machines.
Manu Sporny, [...] (said), "The entire Web community should decide which features should be supported – not just Microsoft or Google or Yahoo."
So just who is the entire Web community? It certainly isn't W3C, who effectively bar individuals and SME's with their $8000 annual membership fees.
The corporations are only interested in establishing or brokering leverage.
The IETF isn't the easiest means of establishing support for a feature, and not many of us have read all 6000 odd RFCs anyhow.
So, basically, who cares what schema org says, or Manu Sporny for that matter?
Since when has anyone been able to make a change to the status quo?
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
The thing is that web standards are only of use if all the major browser vendors (that is MS, mozilla, apple and google) actually support them. Since the w3c has no power to force browser vendors to implement their standards and since many of the vendors are deeply opposed on key issues (such as video codecs) they are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Except that they appear to believe that they have some patents on this "standard" which they aren't making available to non-conforming use. They're probably obvious and trivial patents, and thus invalid if you have enough money and care to fight them through the courts for seven years, but this doesn't entice me to have anything to do with their proposal.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You mean... the entire web community "can" or "will" be the ones to decide whether they will cooperate with the source of most, if not almost all, of their traffic? And what happens when Google, Microsoft and Yahoo agree to index the syntax they agreed to propose?
Then they will only get those sites that have chosen their standard. If RDFa is indeed superior then a search engine utilising it will ultimately win out over those who choose to ignore it. I'm guessing that unless it is significantly better, RDFa will eventually lose out by virtue of it being a mediocre competitor instead of having real tangible advantages.
That's a lot of weight to be pitted against. Even more weight than that (frankly, Apple and Adobe) which undermined the "web community" by choosing h.264 over any free alternative.
And h.264 has been widely adopted simply because it's downsides over a free alternative don't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way, why push back against these companies when there is so little reason to do so?
Then they will only get those sites that have chosen their standard. If RDFa is indeed superior then a search engine utilising it will ultimately win out over those who choose to ignore it.
All of the major search engines have coordinated to support an opposing standard. It's incredibly naïve to suggest that merit alone is enough to challenge collusion of massive corporations, especially when those massive corporations represent almost the entire market. Merit doesn't dictate which standard wins; power does.
And h.264 has been widely adopted simply because it's downsides over a free alternative don't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way
Right, it just affects everyone else in a negative way. Thanks for demonstrating my point.
why push back against these companies when there is so little reason to do so?
There's tremendous reason to do so. h.264 represents a huge barrier to entry for a huge majority of people into a huge segment of the web. Fortunately, this is a space where corporate collusion is not nearly so great, and there is still a chance that the fates aren't sealed.
All of the major search engines have coordinated to support an opposing standard. It's incredibly naïve to suggest that merit alone is enough to challenge collusion of massive corporations, especially when those massive corporations represent almost the entire market. Merit doesn't dictate which standard wins; power does.
If content producers don't jump on board the search engines have no content, but they will jump on board because benefit of opposing it just isn't there. Why fight it if there's next to nothing to gain?
Right, it just affects everyone else in a negative way.
It doesn't affect end users in a negative way and those who make the decision to use h.264 do so even though solutions like WebM exist.
Thanks for demonstrating my point.
I didn't demonstrate your point at all, you just wrote something that has nothing to do with what i wrote and then followed it with that sentence. I could do the same thing.
There's tremendous reason to do so. h.264 represents a huge barrier to entry for a huge majority of people into a huge segment of the web.
It represents a barrier to entry for web browser developers, that is not a huge segment of the web or a majority of people.
If content producers don't jump on board the search engines have no content, but they will jump on board because benefit of opposing it just isn't there. Why fight it if there's next to nothing to gain?
You suggested before that the merit of a better standard would be enough to overcome the choice of the major corporations. Now, by arguing that the "benefit of opposing it just isn't there", you're begging the question—you're saying that if corporations use their leverage to manipulate choice, then the merit is determined by that manipulated outcome. You can't have it both ways.
It doesn't affect end users in a negative way
Yes, of course it does. End users can't (currently) have both an open Internet and HTML5 video. Either trade-off is a negative for end users.
and those who make the decision to use h.264 do so even though solutions like WebM exist.
Right... but not because the merits of h.264 outweigh those of WebM, only because there is a massive barrier to entry for WebM and in the short term content producers/distributors will be losing a huge audience if they go WebM-only. In a world where the potential audience wasn't fragmented by codec support, content producers/distributors would almost certainly choose WebM, on monetary cost alone; but they (currently) can't.
I didn't demonstrate your point at all
Yes, you did. You demonstrated that the choice is made by the powerful, based on how the choice affects those making the choice, regardless of how it affects others.
you just wrote something that has nothing to do with what i wrote and then followed it with that sentence.
You wrote: "downsides over a free alternative don't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way". How does "it just affects everyone else in a negative way" have nothing to do with that? It's a direct response.
It represents a barrier to entry for web browser developers, that is not a huge segment of the web or a majority of people.
It's not just a barrier to entry for web browser developers; it's a barrier to entry for web site/application developers as well as content producers (potentially *everyone*).
Do you realize your whole might-makes-right argument totally undermines the proposition that merit will determine the chosen standard?
Merit is judged by the majority, pretty obvious.
You suggested before that the merit of a better standard would be enough to overcome the choice of the major corporations. Now, by arguing that the "benefit of opposing it just isn't there", you're begging the question—you're saying that if corporations use their leverage to manipulate choice, then the merit is determined by that manipulated outcome. You can't have it both ways.
Cost is always a factor in determining merit, it's pretty simple. One of the merits is that the major corporations support Microdata, so alternatives had better be able to counter that merit.
Yes, of course it does. End users can't (currently) have both an open Internet and HTML5 video. Either trade-off is a negative for end users.
How is that a negative for end users? It might be news to you but the *vast* majority of people don't give a fuck about openness, and they don't see lack of it as a negative. Yes some of the geek minority screams about the virtues of openness but most people don't care, the proof is all around you.
Right... but not because the merits of h.264 outweigh those of WebM, only because there is a massive barrier to entry for WebM
Again with your 'massive barrier to entry' bullshit, there is no barrier to entry for WebM, it's free and the most popular browsers support it.
Yes, you did. You demonstrated that the choice is made by the powerful, based on how the choice affects those making the choice, regardless of how it affects others.
No, 'the powerful' is a rubbish term you made up, what I said is the 'decision-makers', as in the people who make the decision to use the format, which is anyone doing content production/distribution.
You wrote: "downsides over a free alternative don't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way". How does "it just affects everyone else in a negative way" have nothing to do with that? It's a direct response.
Because what i wrote in no way implies that, just because it doesn't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way *does not* mean it affects everyone else in a negative way, your assumption just shows your desperation to support your idea with information that simply is not there.
It's not just a barrier to entry for web browser developers; it's a barrier to entry for web site/application developers as well as content producers (potentially *everyone*).
No, that's bullshit. All you've done is make this claim that it has a huge barrier to entry, it doesn't appear you even know what it is you're claiming it to be.
Merit is judged by the majority, pretty obvious.
Complete claptrap. But even granting it, just for the sake of argument, when the hell did the leverage of a coordinated market-dominating force become "the majority"? How is "the majority" a response to "might-makes-right"?
Cost is always a factor in determining merit, it's pretty simple.
More claptrap. Cost might *outweigh* merit, but it doesn't contribute to it.
One of the merits is that the major corporations support Microdata, so alternatives had better be able to counter that merit.
More might-makes-right. The might of major corporations is not a merit, it's just power. Yes, the reality is that winning against a power consensus takes a great deal of leverage; that doesn't mean that failing to win is any kind of a statement of merit.
How is that a negative for end users?
Increased cost every step of the way, increased restrictions every step of the way, increased exposure to litigation every step of the way, increased likelihood of abuse of IP protection every step of the way.
It might be news to you but the *vast* majority of people don't give a fuck about openness, and they don't see lack of it as a negative. Yes some of the geek minority screams about the virtues of openness but most people don't care, the proof is all around you.
Whether or not people are harmed isn't determined by whether they "give a fuck" or "see it as a negative". The *vast* majority of people are also unaware that they are paying a premium for h.264, that the services they use are also paying a premium that could otherwise be used to improve those services, that there are enormous legal restrictions on their use of that codec, and that they are potentially targets of litigation if any component of that is either untoward in their use of IP or is a convenient or useful target. Being unaware of things doesn't make the things you're unaware of nonexistent. It just makes them more dangerous.
Again with your 'massive barrier to entry' bullshit, there is no barrier to entry for WebM, it's free
There's a massive barrier to entry. Most video content on the web is in h.264 or VP6. 73% of users (see below) can't use it. Getting web site/application developers to support it is a tough sell, not because they wouldn't love the reduced cost and liability, but because the traffic has to be there to justify the cost. Traffic != merit.
and the most popular browsers support it.
More claptrap. IE (around 55% of web users) does not support it at all, no version of Firefox before 4.0 (about 11%), no version of Safari (7%) and no version of Opera before 10.60 (negligible %). 73% of browsers in use don't support it. (Source: marketshare.hitslink.com)
No, 'the powerful' is a rubbish term you made up, what I said is the 'decision-makers'
Explain how they differ.
as in the people who make the decision to use the format
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are not people. They're powerful corporations.
which is anyone doing content production/distribution.
That's not who's making the choice.
Because what i wrote in no way implies that
I didn't say you implied that, I responded with it. It's a *relevant response*, which you can agree or disagree with, but it *has something to do with it*.
just because it doesn't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way *does not* mean it affects everyone else in a negative way
It doesn't *mean* that, it just *is the case*.
your assumption just shows your desperation to support your idea with information that simply is not there.
Assumption? It's an opinion. The information
More claptrap. Cost might *outweigh* merit, but it doesn't contribute to it.
Rubbish, if you have 2 options and the deciding factor is that one is cheaper than the other then obviously the cheaper will win. Do you not know the definition of 'merit'? cost *does* contribute, cost is a factor when deciding desirable traits!
Increased cost every step of the way, increased restrictions every step of the way, increased exposure to litigation every step of the way, increased likelihood of abuse of IP protection every step of the way.
The ramblings of an ignorant idiot, clearly have no idea what you're talking about and you've just bought into whatever the WebM advocates throw out, if you actually knew anything about the licensing you wouldn't be posting so much obvious rubbish.
Whether or not people are harmed isn't determined by whether they "give a fuck" or "see it as a negative".
It doesn't matter, as we see in the markets the benefit outweighs the 'harm', this 'harm' that you speak of is of no concern to the end users.
The *vast* majority of people are also unaware that they are paying a premium for h.264
That premium is so incredibly low that the people don't care about it.
There's a massive barrier to entry. Most video content on the web is in h.264 or VP6. 73% of users (see below) can't use it.
Absolute bullshit, 73% of users don't want to use it. It isn't that they can't, it's that they don't want to as they see no benefit in it, there is no advantage for them.
More claptrap. IE (around 55% of web users) does not support it at all, no version of Firefox before 4.0 (about 11%), no version of Safari (7%) and no version of Opera before 10.60 (negligible %). 73% of browsers in use don't support it.
No shit, old browsers don't support HTML5 either but we don't just throw away HTML5 as having 'too big of a barrier to entry'. We have new browsers, freely available to upgrade to that support these new features, welcome to reality.
No, 'the powerful' is a rubbish term you made up, what I said is the 'decision-makers'
Explain how they differ.
You're that thick that you can't figure it out for yourself? Anyone choosing to use a format is the 'decision-maker'.
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are not people. They're powerful corporations.
Then use 'entity' if you have so much trouble working that out.
That's not who's making the choice.
Oh ok my video magically encodes itself, of course i make the choice!
just because it doesn't affect the decision-makers in a measurable way *does not* mean it affects everyone else in a negative way
It doesn't *mean* that, it just *is the case*.
Rubbish, you've got no facts yet you continue to spread this FUD. If it affected the user in a negative way that anyone actually cared about we would all be grabbing one of the many freely available web browsers or plugins that support WebM and everyone would bail on h.264, yet we aren't.
The *cost* alone is a barrier to entry
There is no cost barrier to entry, but if you weren't just making up this shit as you went along you would actually know this. Stop spreading FUD based on your own ignorance and actually *read the license*.
While WebM doesn't address most of the IP litigation concerns, it does address the cost concerns
1.2c per month per subscriber over 100,000, that's nothing when you have a subscriber-base that big, and that is certainly beyond the point of market entry, thus proving that your comment that cost is a barrier to entry is just a figment of your own ignorance and has no factual basis whatsoever.
idiot
Your argument has been building in this direction all along. Whatever the merits of your position, I don't have the time or energy for people whose argumentation depends on insult instead of substance. Take care.
Your argument has been building in this direction all along. Whatever the merits of your position, I don't have the time or energy for people whose argumentation depends on insult instead of substance. Take care.
Your entire position is based on your assumptions rather than any actual facts (like the details within the actual license) - as demonstrated by your ignorant comments - how can anyone taking that position *not* be an idiot.
If it's to keep up with the hardware and software innovations at the speed they actually happen, then any standard needs reevaluation at a lot smaller intervals than five years. I would say three years, at most. "Real standards" last based on their context, which means the technology they govern. And most of those "standards" changed over and over again over their years of use. Unless you would like to go back to having to wait and hour for a film exposure to set, tell an operator who you're calling to make a connection (on a party-line, perhaps?), drive on packed oil-and-dirt roads, DC-based power only, whilst spaking olde Ainglish.
"We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be." - Joss Whedon via Angel
Note how poster attempts to divert attention from her (?) willful (arguably) mis-citation (to support her [?] larger point) by criticizing the correction's tone. Does political correctness trump facts?
I guess we'll just go with "IHBT, I hope it makes you feel better about yourself" at this point. Unless you really want to go on a pedantic rampage.
We could do that, you and I: picking through each others' entire comment history, drawing attention to typos and logical inconsistencies until the end of time. I don't know who would win. I don't really want to find out. But don't assume it would be you.
However, it would not be very productive, and if Slashdot hadn't alerted me that your reply had been made, there would most likely be no one whatsoever to "note" your statement at all, excepting perhaps Qzukk, the only person to have replied to any of your journal posts in the past two months. And that's without consideration for your—frankly, quite enlightening—Tripod site, which does not appear to be written as a satire or a character study.
Here's a hint: monkey say, monkey do. If you want to interact with others, don't do it by going out of your way to insinuate and accuse that their statements have been insufficiently rigorous. At the time you do it, it may feel like you're a hero, defending the coherence and validity of truth, but you'll quickly find that your would-be audience has little interest in the kind of pedantry that belongs in a thesis defence.
As a small testament to that, I point out that my response to you received a "+1, Underrated" moderation, whereas yours was spared this minor honour. This suggests that someone climbed over your initial post, left it untouched, and gave the point to mine instead. Admittedly, this is circumstantial evidence, as I could be an army of sockpuppets manipulating the whole thing—and, hey, you seem like a pretty solipsist guy, so let's pretend I am—or merely have friends, but in general it appears that many of your more analytical comments (disclaimer: I only checked down to March 14th) have garnered a similar level of attention. While they do not exhibit the same degree of viciousness as your appearance in this thread, an unverified skim suggests that in context most of your other analytical posts have a moderately abrasive tone. Perhaps they were meant to be troll posts, but they certainly didn't get a rise out of any moderators. (I hope you find it sound reasoning when I tell you that Slashdot is in fact big enough that I did not personally oversee the decision to leave all of them unmoderated.)
This is still circumstantial evidence, of course, but I feel it is a somewhat stronger defence of the point which I wish to make: your style of commenting gets you ignored more often than not. At this point, it seems like a lovely little day-trip into marquis1740.tripod.com is in order, to perhaps come up with an explanation as to why that might be the case, but I don't aim to be merely offensive. My thesis is that you should work on your social skills. It will make you a happier person.
Not unrelatedly at all, arguing about gender on the internet is simultaneously very impolite and in violation of Occam's razor. If you can't handle (a) transgendered people or (b) the possibility that someone might present themselves online inconsistently with their physical person, and you're so upset about one or both of those that you're willing to "take it out" out on a random passerby in a fashion that compromises the tone of what was otherwise a perfectly respectable and level-headed piece of criticism, I strongly invite you to stop posting on Slashdot and take up permanent residence at 4chan, where such things are much more commonplace and even socially acceptable.
But I will not be your self-esteem punching bag. If you feel like you really, really still need one, please forgo my suggestion that you move to 4chan and simply get a therapist. That's what they're for.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
This is their next big idea? Seriously, do these guys just sit around all day and think "how can we make the life of the developer even more complicated and confusing?".
:T:R:A:N:S:
Why is it that Video Games are still not considered as a major source of media? Looking at the full list schema page there is no mention of a video game, even though the industry is larger than the music industry when it comes to revenue and sales. Yet music has many different new tags. Curse you evil big corps!
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