Stijn Peeters wrote:
As I said, a SHOULD requirement in the specification which will (given the
current status quo) not be followed by the major(ity of) browser vendors is
useless and should be improved so it is a recommendation which at least can
be implemented. Changing the SHOULD to MUST means that a lot of browser
vendors would not be able to develop a conforming implementation.
Governments do generally not build browsers or HTML parsers so an HTML
specification would likely not influence them much, and I believe they are
not who such a specification is aimed at.
A lot has been said about the meaning of 'should'. You are not the first
to claim 'should' is only meaningful if vendors implement it. If this is
the case why not replace ALL references to 'should' with 'must'?
Rhetorical question. The reason for 'should' in a standard (or draft) is
that it reflects what we (the public, the developers and the majority)
want but believe some vendors won't or can't implement. It's an opt-out
clause. According to OpenOffice it appears 329 times in the current
draft. Hardly a useless word! All that is being discussed here is the
desire to tell vendors they 'should' implement OGG. Apparently Nokia and
Apple don't feel that way but are not happy to simply opt-out - they
want EVERYBODY to opt-out. If we replaced all shoulds with musts this
standard would never go anywhere and if we deleted all shoulds then we'd
have even more divergence.
What really matters is that where the pros and cons balance a neutral
vendor (one that hasn't already committed exclusively to a proprietary
format) might be persuaded to implement a 'should' recommendation. This
is exactly what we had before this change, and for a good reason. I have
yet to hear a neutral vendor oppose the OGG recommendation and I would
be saddened if they they did.
Also format wars are won by content, not encoders. Governments and
non-profit organizations do produce content. Formats gain some advantage
through standards support (even 'should' recommendations).
You and Dave have both accused me of 'bashing'. I think a more
appropriate (and less violent) word would be 'pointing'. I'm pointing
out how self-serving Apple and Nokia are. PR-wise they are, in effect,
'bashing' themselves. Not my problem. Good luck to them and their
entrenched monopolies right? It's their 'right' as a corporation to
wreck standards for the benefit of their shareholders? They sound very
reasonable, until you realise that one way or another the public will be
paying for it.
Shannon
