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Microsoft Picks Another Web Standards Fight
mikejuk writes "WebRTC is a way to allow browsers to get in touch with one another using audio or video data without the help of a server. Google has been something of a pioneer in this area, and submitted a suggested technology for the standard. Mozilla has gone along with it, making it all look good. Microsoft, on the other hand, just seemed to be standing on the sidelines, watching what was happening. However, Microsoft now has a product that needs something like WebRTC; namely, Skype. It has been working on a web-based version of Skype and this has focused the collective mind on the problems of browser-to-browser communication. It now agrees that a standard is needed, just not the one Google and Mozilla are behind. Microsoft has submitted its own proposals for CU-RTC-Web or Customizable, Ubiquitous Real Time Communication over the Web, to the W3C. It may well be that Microsoft's alternative has features that make it superior, but a single standard is preferable to a better non-standard. Given Microsoft's need to make Skype work in the browser, it seems likely that, should its proposal not be accepted as the standard, it will press on regardless, thus splitting the development environment. Both Google and Mozilla have already put a lot of work into WebRTC, and there are partial implementations in Firefox, Chrome and Opera."
Color me surprised. /sarcasm
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Why not go with the best overall standard regardless of who introduced it and whether or not it was the first. Now this doesn't mean I'm for or against either standard, it just seems that the assumption is that it should be ignored because it wasn't first and because Microsoft introduced it.
Do you even know how standards work? They don't just get pulled out someones ass and then bam everyone implements it.
Everyone makes suggestions and they implement some ideas and see what needs to be done to improve on it, and this loops until it is completed.
Neither Google or Microsoft have created a standard, they have created a possible standard. A proposal. Nothing more.
Saying non-standard is completely ignorant to the situation at hand.
There is nothing stating that the entire thing is just going to fall apart in a huge mess.
They likely follow very similar methods that can be implemented in more-or-less the same way.
In fact, both could be combined to create a better standard overall. (and I am sure there was a very good feature in Microsofts implementation that was completely missing from the Google proposal)
Remember, Microsoft also gave you XMLHTTPRequest.
They aren't completely useless. Ignoring them because they slowed down the evolution of the web for a decade is still awful and unfair, regardless of how much we hate them for it. Given they actually put in some effort to IE10 this time, and "Metro", they might actually give a damn about the web now.
What in the name of Sweet Jesus McGillicutty are you going on about? Fucking hell, you ramble on about shite in a way that makes no fuckin' sense whatsoever. How about you contact the guy directly and ramble on about whatever the hell it is you're on about and leave us the fuck out of it, ya addlepated gobshite?
Much more difficult to be snoopy creepy without the ability to wedge back doors into a p2p standard.
After all, it's all about the cloud, p2p must die! Not only is p2p more difficult to be snoopy creepy, it's
more difficult to collect a toll on.
From the description, ill pass. Just sounds like another way to eat our personal bandwidth and add more local attack vectors.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And here I was thinking I was having a bad experience with a Dr. Bronner's bottle.
\r
"but a single standard is preferable to a better non-standard"
No it's not. Worse is not better. Better is better.
Oh and VHS-C v. Super8. (I picked VHS-C.) This is hardly news anymore. It's what companies do in order to gain an advantage over other companies. Nor is it just "the evil" Microsoft.
Google tried to hijack the internet video standard not too long ago. Everybody was already using MPEG4/h.264 online & in their portable iPods, but suddenly Google decided to introduce WebM and throw things into chaos. To quote the /. summary: "A single standard is preferable to a better non-standard," whether it's better or not.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
a single standard is preferable to a better non-standard
As much as I might wish this were true, it isn't always the case.
There was a time when Cisco's proprietary routing protocols were so superior to the widely-implemented published standard protocols that people bought it despite not being a "standard."
If Microsoft's value-add for "going proprietary" isn't heads-and-shoulders-above the existing standard, then they will need to make sales on the sizzle not the steak.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Here is an example of a Chrome only website? Notice it is fully HTML 5 compliant but the implementation is not standardized yet so the css 3 all have similar functionalities so they get a checkmark at www.html5test.com, but in reality it might as well be IE 6 all over again. That html 5 and css 3 is not w3c standardized.
Webkite css 3 is different than Microsofts which is also different from Gecko's. Until the W3C starts leading and defining standards I do not think it is evil of MS this time around because there is no guidelines at all and no draft proposal. Just mailing lists of "wouldn't it be great if we had X!"
If I had my way I would make them do a final proposal and go into a recommendation quickly by freezing other things being discussed and make them html 5.1 and css 3.1. The sooner we have standards the sooner things will work together again.
http://saveie6.com/
Google's WebRTC proposal is very narrowly tailored, relies on stateful SIP, and is tied to their WebM video standard.
Microsoft's proposal is more flexible, stateless, simpler to implement, and is more "web-ish", eg: Relying on an exchange where my browser says "I can accept h264, webm, mpeg2" and the baby monitor says "I speak h264" so we use negotiated h264.
Basically Microsoft is saying that we should adopt a standard that makes it easy to interact with non-browser devices, phone/cell networks, etc. We should also make the API easier to use and stateless. The original WebRTC proposal is only concerned with letting Google+ users video-chat with other Google+ users and it shows.
I would urge you to go read the actual proposals before commenting on this:
Microsoft: http://html5labs.com/cu-rtc-web/cu-rtc-web.htm
Google's http://dev.w3.org/2011/webrtc/editor/webrtc.html
I would also point out that Microsoft is following the correct W3C procedure by making a proposal and asking for comments. In the past they would have just shipped it in IE and/or rolled it out automatically to all Windows users, thus making their standard the de-facto standard. We should reward this kind of participation and interaction, not condemn it.
I would also point out that Microsoft invented AJAX by just rolling out their own standard... the same way JSON was invented. Design by committee sucks in most cases and we'd be far better served by selecting from competing proposals or merging two competing proposals rather than requiring 15 people to sit down and agree on the definition of the draft standard of the proposal to consider altering the document title.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
ok, it's funny, because i've just been reviewing WebRTC. i was extremely excited to hear about it. i've been setting up videoconferencing systems on and off for some time. they've *always* had to be flash-based. if you've ever set up red5, you'll know it's a dog. now there's crtmpserver and there's even rtmplite and siprtmp: http://code.google.com/p/siprtmp/ - i just managed to get this to work a couple of days ago, with yate, thanks to the help of the people on freenode, in #yate
the problem with flash is this: back in 2008, flash was reasonably stable. but now, it's an absolute dog. flash under macosx on google chrome runs audio in "dalek" fashion. flash under gnu/linux, if ever you enable the webcam you *will* end up with an instant crash, because the video is read into a buffer that's the wrong size (you can see the picture jumping all over the place before the crash occurs).
and webex? i'd never heard of it until a couple of weeks ago: that crashes, too: at least once every 30 minutes. and you have to pay for it. also, it's a plugin that's only available for macosx and windows.
the bottom line is that the state of videoconferencing - ubiquitous videoconferencing that's easy to use - is in pretty deep shit. so i was *delighted* to hear of WebRTC.
unfortunately... *sigh* this was only about an hour ago... i spoke to the implementors on #webrtc about the standard, after finding that there's no way to select the microphone or the output. their response: we're not interested in listening to you. we are going to make this "secure". we have no interest in doing what everyone else in the industry has done. security is the absolute top priority.
so what that means is: if you create a phone call application, and you want the sound of the call to go out over speakers, and the call to come in on headphones - tough shit. why? because they want to make the *browser* UI (not a javascript API) select the audio output device - singular. likewise, if you wish to select different microphones - tough shit. why? because they want the *browser* UI to select one and *only* one mic source.
the reason stated (only about an hour ago)? "security". it's "not secure" to give information to web browsers, because people *might* write applications that abuse that information.
the fact that people *already* abuse cookies to track people very very accurately, and the fact that a UI popup could be made which says "do you wish to give this web site access to the list of audio devices?" then "do you wish to give this web site access to audio device N" were completely ignored.
so the opportunity to level the playing field - to take over the monopoly that flash has had for decades, and that skype has had for almost a decade - is being lost *not* by the WebRTC technology but by the people *implementing* that technology.
if the people implementing WebRTC in google chrome and firefox are the same people behind the WebRTC standard, then i am really not surprised to hear that microsoft is going ahead with an alternative standard.
much as i don't actually like microsoft's abusive dominance which we've all witnessed over the past two decades, i've spoken to the IE team a couple of times and i know that they really really do a hell of a good job, under difficult high-pressured circumstances: their HTML5 compliance is now second to none, for example, and they *still* get flak for it! :)
so the opportunity is being lost - by the people behind WebRTC - and i truly hope that microsoft's initiative will give them a good kick up the backside and get them to sort themselves out. sort yourselves out, damnit!
Microsoft has a long history of this kind of behavior.
In the 90s, nobody would be using the web because we would all be signing on to MSN Network (or whatever they called it)
They didn't seem to like Sun's Java and had to create their own giving rise to ActiveX, which we love so much.
They didn't like the Javascript every one else was using and created their own.
Then of course there was jscript, vertical text, obfuscated script, & embedded fonts.
No doubt they'll be proposing web-drectx which they'll insist is better than webgl.
Not sure if Google's are or if MS has already said they would not patent it, but I'd be surprised if MS DID'NT make sure their proposal was patented.
Why are we still pushing everything into the web browser? Considering users still have to keep updating their browsers and possibly use multiple browsers due to disagreements over standards like this, what's the point in using HTML and friends as a platform instead of something actually designed for RIAs?
After what MS has done to pervert the standards process, any proposal with its name on it needs to be filed, unopened, in the bin. They have proven that every meaningful interaction they have with a standards body is intended solely to subvert, manipulate or destroy it.
It's fine if you don't like Microsoft (heck, I don't, either), but at least try to make an unbiased summary. This is ridiculous, as some of the other posters have noted. Microsoft's standard proposal is arguably better than Google's.
AC for obvious reasons.
they have deliberately picked a name which they know it will get shortened to RTC-Web just to maximise the confusion between WebRTC and themselves.
They are such sly cunts.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
Otherwise people will NOT be able to use it.
Oo gee. Too bad that leaves out the H264 crap.
1. They don't identify patents.
2. They have a history of perverting standards, even their own.
3. The have a LONG history of misbehavior against any standards body.
So no, it isn't better.
Given Microsoft's need to make Skype work in the browser, it seems likely that, should its proposal not be accepted as the standard, it will press on regardless, thus splitting the development environment.
wait, i thought as long as everyone supported HTML5 we'd never have any browser compatibility problems again, right?
Of course I can see CU-RTC further convoluting the situation (considering Chrome and Firefox have already begun implementing the WebRTC specification in their latest browsers). However, when you choose to implement a still-evolving specification, this is a necessary risk. I stand behind Google and Firefox for being leaders in the industry by advancing RTC forward in browsers. However, one shouldn't ignore Microsoft's (read: Skype's) significant experience in developing videoconferencing protocols. A stateless protocol, arguably, is technically superior to a stateful protocol. And supporting multiple codecs, while complicating the specification itself, allows for greater versatility in end-user implementation.
Replacement for skype.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Abandoned out dated tech I say. Imagine if we could just use plan 9 and send our virtual web cam files to the other persons virtual monitor files, because we could do that, and it would take like a 3 line script, and it would be better.
So if your going to pick a standard pick the best, pick plan 9.
Considering everything else web browsers have their tentacles into these days, why should we welcome more yet to be discovered exploits giving browsers access to things they should not touch?
Have gnu, will travel.
From a purely technical perspective, Microsoft's proposal may actually be the better choice. The problem is that CU-RTC-Web doesn't mandate a codec, and lets the peers negotiate. Microsoft spins this as being flexible, and at a purely technical level, it is. The problem is that if the standard doesn't mandate some reasonable baseline codec, you're going to end up with implementations that can't talk to each other. Microsoft knows this, and they doesn't care.
Google isn't exactly a Saint either. They know full well that Microsoft and Apple won't implement VP8 (for semi-defensible technical/legal reasons, as well as evil intent). WebRTC with VP8 is unlikely to ever be available on iDevices, and that's a significant chunk of the market. Google knows this, and they don't care.
The key sequence to access my Slashdot bookmark in Firefox is Alt-B-S. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
the 90s are over assholes back the fuck off
It may well be that Microsoft's alternative has features that make it superior
Usually, they introduce alternatives and features that aren't as good as prevailing technology.
The proposal is to make these the mandatory to implement codecs because they're the only royalty-free options. Microsoft prefers to ignore the interoperability issue (ie, use h.264 via system codec installs) as anyone without h.264 is just a dirty hippie anyway.
A search of Google Shopping will return 192,000 hits for H.264.
Video security and industrial applications. Home video. Video conferencing. Video production. The list goes on and on and on.
There are over 1,000 H.264 licensees, including Google itself and about 30 H.264 licensors, most of them mega-industrial corporations the size of Mitsubishi and Samsung. Google, for all its might, doesn't wield that kind of power.
...mean they are picking a fight. I say let them submit it and let's see which one is better. Let the market decide.
That's all we need to know to know that its purpose is to support Microft's desire to control everything on Earth.
Microsoft used procedures to good effect to disable even ISO - the arbiter of procedure controls - in their OOXML battle. There comes a time when you have to accept you're dealing with the devil - and he cheats and lies. He is in fact the father of lies, but he can be persuasive.
Your "Microsoft invented" paragraph I'm just going to point out that it's both untrue and indicative of a desire to claim genesis of the inventions of others, or perhaps taint the common recollection. The proof is left as an exercise.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Microsoft is monopoly and wants to continue being. And any working open standard which is not locked to MS is poison for monopoly.
One way for monopoly to fight open standards is to create more standards which seems open but are not. And when there are many standards, there is no standard.
Like ODF and OOXML.
Just say no. Seriously - why don't the people responsible take the past history of those "contributing" into account?
So by embracing open standards anybody can use Google is avoiding the standard "capture the customer" logic and pursuing a "promote progress and always excel"
What are these "open standards" in advertising that google is embracing? What is the "interoperability" standard that I can use and retrieve adsense data from google? Hint: There is *none*. In fact they make it difficult on purpose if you want to run a campaign on multiple ad networks.
I hope you know that their business is advertising. Or are you that little kid that thinks you are their customer and they give you free stuff?
If you want to advertise your products on the web, google owns the majority of the web advertising market in north america. You are *FORCED* to use them and dance to their tunes when they randomly change their TOS and pricing.
I'm OK with that. That works for me.
Yeah, I bet you are. I hope google is paying you for this, don't do it for free dude !
Pissing on standard processes since 1990.
If they just had to pay for a fraction of the losses they cause with this shit, they'd be broke.
What is it with this 'everything in the browser' behavior ? Seems like they are running around in circles, once evrything runs in a browser it will become a de-factor OS, so were back to square one. Being independant of an OS, don't make me laugh. You'll end up being dependant on a browser. Look at all the tricks you need to make your site work on all browsers and versions. Just the same problem as with OS'es. Call me a conventional thinker. Skype works fine on several OS'es. Probably the endpoint will be that Skype will only run on Windows ?? like Office ? like Navision ?
I don't know about grammar, but I can tell you your vocabulary has already taken a headshot.
It was a moment when I give a sh*t about it. A-a-a-and it gone: No more MSIE-only planet Earth. If Chrome, Safari and Mozilla will not support it (and they will not) then it will be yet another Silverlight.
Just support both and see which wins, as long as the standards are good ones and not crap like Open XML.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
"Native applications are where it's at" - by VortexCortex (1117377) on Friday August 10, @11:15PM (#40954415) Homepage
See subject-line: Even Linus Torvalds feels that way (he doesn't "do" web apps, & has expressed that he doesn't bother with "that kind" of (using the term loosely mind you -> ) "programming"...
He's a system programmer - so, his view makes TOTAL sense from his perspective.
The second scriptable documents are allowed (not just Word/Excel/Access/Powerpoint macros), you open the door & the "trash comes blowing in" - which IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED WITH JAVASCRIPTED WEBPAGES/WEBSITES... malware/malcripted content!
(Heck - it even's been happening in banner ads for Pete's sake!)
* Dumb move... bigtime dumb!
"also why I said "Fuck you" to building anything on top of browsers a long time ago." - by VortexCortex (1117377) on Friday August 10, @11:15PM (#40954415) Homepage
Same here (though I am forced on occasion to HAVE to do it for work though) - they're slower, more CPU consumptive (javascript's a KILLER that way, CoreTemp even showed me that much driving CPU temps up bigtime processing javascript), and imo, bullshit, compared to a TRUE "stand-alone" (meaning non-runtime interpreted) executable.
(I don't even consider doing webpages or websites, coding - it's largely text formatting with pretty pictures - tossing in script tags for data processing (the one place they can be useful, for things like online tests, shopping/banking, e-commerce in general, but, that IS about it))
Their performance largely sucks too compared to normal executables.
APK
P.S.=> Yes, & I feel just like Mr. T. of Linux fame does about it, and you too, I see... apk
Do you remember SPF? The id system used to prevent spam emails? Microsoft added some 'features' which it just happen to have patented and then pushed this merged version as a standard.
Effectively trying to inject their own patents for a worthless add-on feature into SPF so that everyone would have to license it from Microsoft.
I wouldn't touch Microsoft's spec with a twenty foot pole. Watch for FUD and lies from MS, if they're true to form. Watch for incompatible non-standard and buggy Microsoft implementations
That's the one that's important to Microsoft so they can keep Skype alive...
This work has been going on at the IETF for about two years now. Skype itself has contributed to the effort (before they were bought), and so did CISCO, Ericsson, and many others. There was always someone from Microsoft in the room too.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Given Microsof'ts history I would be very leary of adopting any standard they proposed. There have been several standards that were adopted before people realized that they contained submarine patents. Microsoft typically proposes FRAND terms for their patents, and FRAND terms are incompatible with the GPL among other things. Any standard that requires FRAND licenses cannot in practice be used by FOSS (Free and Open Source Software).
pgmer6809
Bottom line is, there is no such thing as web "standards". Even among those browsers that are supposed to champion web standards, they do things differently.
I love it how everyone believes that the lack of web standards is due to Microsoft, but I think Microsoft is the only honest web browser developer out there.
Rather then trying to make a browser that adheres to a myth, and thus never fully achieve a zen like state of 100% standard feng shui, Microsoft has seen that the standards have severly limited the web moving forward. This is largely because while most web browsers are striving to establish standards set 5 - 10 years ago, Microsoft has always wanted to create a web for tomorrow. Case in point that while W3 was trying to envision a standard for a web full of static images and links way back in its infancy, Microsoft was trying to bring interactive components and multimedia support to the web using Active X. In fact the whole reason why we ended up with Java and Flash and Silverlight and Active X and all the other fucking wonderful interactive technologies on the web was because the fucking web standards committee took too fucking long figuring out what "static" Web 1.0 standards should be at a time when people demanded fully interactive Web 2.0 websites.
Add to that the recent fragmentation of the web experience between desktop, tablet and mobile devices. You think "one" standard is going to fit nicely against all these device types? Now add cloud services, rich media, and the "apps" phenom and I think people are stretching the capabilities of what a committee can achieve towards creating a "standard".
The effort to "ratify" a standard ensures that web technologies are NEVER be state of the art. By the time some committee sends up some red smoke signals indicating a new web standard has been established, society has already moved on to the latest and greatest device which introduces new ways for interactivity and expressiveness that the current standard cannot achieve.
So, fuck the standards!
Focus on providing the best web experience possible. If your web developer is worth their salt in skill then they are already building multiple websites for various browsers and devices because they have already accepted the fact that a world where there is only one set of "standards" to build a website from is a concept coming from fucking retarded idealists.
Microsoft knows this and the other web browser makers need to pull their heads out of their asses and realize it to.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.