Subject: RE: Device upload for all platforms -- the official HTML WG posit ion

From: Cameron Young <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 12:03:45 -0800

OK, I'll bite.

I'm totally independent of this issue, but am curious how open the process
is.

Please point me to the published change requests so I can form my own
opinion.  You don't need to publish them in this forum.  You only need to
point me at them.  

Presumably, you can do that, I'll read them and find them reasonable, and
therefore sleep better tonight!  (Along with the help of a little Dimetapp
to offset the head cold I've picked up in this infernally wet climate in
Vancouver.)

Regards,
Cameron Young

-----Original Message-----
From: James P. Salsman [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 11:01 AM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: Device upload for all platforms -- the official HTML WG
position

> From: "Steven Pemberton" <[email-masked]>
> 
> > You state that there are comments regarding how the device upload
> > proposal can be improved.  Please publish them, with my replies to
> > them.  My understanding is that there are no unresolved issues.
> 
> They are already published, and there is no need to repeat them here.

Where are they published?  They are in the private W3C members-only 
archives, in the w3c-html-wg archives around October-November 1999, 
with nearly the same discussion in the private w3c-forms list earlier.

> This non-wintel issue is a red herring, and has nothing to do with it.

The fact remains that non-wintel web users are excluded from a range 
of very useful services involving device input and upload.  If the 
HTML Working Group had incorporated device upload into specifications
when they were first submitted as an internet-draft in 1997, after 
the implementation on the WebTV Plus, then all this would be a 
non-issue.  But as things stand, the W3C is contributing to wintel 
dominance, and disenfranchising Unix and Mac users.

Delaying device upload standardization to coincide with the XForms 
overhaul of HTML forms might be attractive to the HTML Working Group 
because it increases the chance that XForms will be accepted.  But 
is that an ethical justification for delaying a technology that 
enables a wide range of educational services?  

Tying device upload to XForms will certainly delay both, and could 
make it less likely that the device upload work will be implemented.  
If the XForms work is so important, then shouldn't it be able to 
stand on its own?

Cheers,
James