Adobe's John Nack: Adobe is "sabotaging" HTML5?(blogs.adobe.com)
blogs.adobe.com
Adobe's John Nack: Adobe is "sabotaging" HTML5?
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/02/adobe_is_sabotaging_html5.html
16 comments
Dear John@Adobe, if you did due diligence, then you already would have talked to the people at Adobe that participates in the working group, have found out exactly what was said on the email lists, and would have posted all the details and an apology for holding up the work due to minor process details. And you would have ensured us, that such behavior will never again be seen from Adobe.
What you did was to post an almost-ad-hominen attack, calling names such as "total ignorance/laziness", lack of "due diligence". Your only 'content' is quotes from 2 blogs that says Adobe is a nice kid without telling the details about what happened, what the w3c emails said.
When Hixie says "blocked by Adobe", you better come up with better arguments than "these 2 guys I've selected myself says that Adobe is a nice kid". If anybody knows anything about html5, it is Hixie. He has done an incredible job getting html5 forward, and he has fully earned his respect. http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1265967771&count=1
And you would have pointed out, that Adobe would from now on take a back seat and not veto the canvas and other new html5 features as Adobe isn't a browser vendor.
What you did was to post an almost-ad-hominen attack, calling names such as "total ignorance/laziness", lack of "due diligence". Your only 'content' is quotes from 2 blogs that says Adobe is a nice kid without telling the details about what happened, what the w3c emails said.
When Hixie says "blocked by Adobe", you better come up with better arguments than "these 2 guys I've selected myself says that Adobe is a nice kid". If anybody knows anything about html5, it is Hixie. He has done an incredible job getting html5 forward, and he has fully earned his respect. http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1265967771&count=1
And you would have pointed out, that Adobe would from now on take a back seat and not veto the canvas and other new html5 features as Adobe isn't a browser vendor.
I was going to post that I doubted the authenticity of this quote, since its style struck me as overly modern and all the sources on the web seemed to trace back to one talk from a 2008 conference. But then I googled the document's apparent title ("Simple Sabotage Field Manual") and discovered what appears to be the original:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/26184-8.txt
Skimming around this thing is pretty interesting. They recommend plugging sewage systems by flushing sponges down toilets. And here is part of how they recommend setting fire to a factory:
To make another type of simple fuse, soak one end of a piece of string in grease. Rub a generous pinch of gunpowder over the inch of string where greasy string meets clean string. Then ignite the clean end of the string. It will burn slowly without a flame (in much the same way that a cigarette burns) until it reaches the grease and gunpowder; it will then flare up suddenly.
Sounds pretty authentic to me. Which makes the original quote all the greater. It opens a new possible explanation for the inefficiency of large companies, too: they're full of saboteurs!
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/26184-8.txt
Skimming around this thing is pretty interesting. They recommend plugging sewage systems by flushing sponges down toilets. And here is part of how they recommend setting fire to a factory:
To make another type of simple fuse, soak one end of a piece of string in grease. Rub a generous pinch of gunpowder over the inch of string where greasy string meets clean string. Then ignite the clean end of the string. It will burn slowly without a flame (in much the same way that a cigarette burns) until it reaches the grease and gunpowder; it will then flare up suddenly.
Sounds pretty authentic to me. Which makes the original quote all the greater. It opens a new possible explanation for the inefficiency of large companies, too: they're full of saboteurs!
That document was written for Norwegian resistance fighters during the occupation by Nazi Germany.[1]
You can tell from its reference to "Quislings", which were the collaboration government (like Vichy France) of Norway at the time.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Norway_by_Nazi_Ge...
You can tell from its reference to "Quislings", which were the collaboration government (like Vichy France) of Norway at the time.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Norway_by_Nazi_Ge...
The genius of that strategy is that many dysfunctional organizations already have people who work this way, so if you start imitating them, nobody will suspect that you have an ulterior motive.
Sounds like the way congress is run.
As intended by the founders -- they didn't want things being done quickly.
True, but you're really dodging the issue here which is the current dysfunctional Congress. There have been a record number of filibusters this past year; Congress hasn't been so divided since the Civil War. Requiring 60 votes (the number required to prevent a filibuster) to pass a bill is against the intentions of the founders. In all cases where more than a majority is required, the founders explicitly noted the ratio (ex: the confirmation of treaties). No ratio is specified for the passage of bills or the confirmation of appointments. Whatever it going on in Congress today, it's not something that was intended by the founders. Hell, filibusters weren't even put into the Senate rules until the early 1900s.
Personally I think the Dems should exercise the nuclear option and amend the constitution to require 3/5 for appointments to the Supreme Court. They used to be confirmed by that much anyway; it's most been under GW Bush that we've had Court appointees pass by narrow margins. Cliton had over 90 votes for all of his and most of Reagan's were unanimous. GW never broke 60.
Personally I think the Dems should exercise the nuclear option and amend the constitution to require 3/5 for appointments to the Supreme Court. They used to be confirmed by that much anyway; it's most been under GW Bush that we've had Court appointees pass by narrow margins. Cliton had over 90 votes for all of his and most of Reagan's were unanimous. GW never broke 60.
You're right that the current Congresses have been extraordinary in their dysfunction, but a little late on your timeline for Supreme Court appointment battles: Reagan's Bork was shot down 42-58, GHWB's Thomas was confirmed 52-48, with both debates waged in the media.
In the times of 90-vote confirmations, horse-trading of variegated appointees just went on behind closed doors. Now that things are so fractured, a president can only get away with nominating a slate of judges all partially partisan in the same direction.
It wouldn't be the constitution being amended anyway, just Senate procedural rules, but Harry Reid is never going to go for that.
In the times of 90-vote confirmations, horse-trading of variegated appointees just went on behind closed doors. Now that things are so fractured, a president can only get away with nominating a slate of judges all partially partisan in the same direction.
It wouldn't be the constitution being amended anyway, just Senate procedural rules, but Harry Reid is never going to go for that.
You're right that the current Congresses have been extraordinary in their dysfunction, but a little late on your timeline for Supreme Court appointment battles: Reagan's Bork was shot down 42-58, GHWB's Thomas was confirmed 52-48, with both debates waged in the media.
Obviously I'm aware of Bork and Thomas but they are irrelevant to my point. My point is that, in general, we usually confirmed justices by a large margin. That hasn't happened for 3 appointments in a row. 2 Exceptions in the last few decades doesn't make my point any less valid.
In the times of 90-vote confirmations, horse-trading of variegated appointees just went on behind closed doors. Now that things are so fractured, a president can only get away with nominating a slate of judges all partially partisan in the same direction.
The idea that a president has to nominate a partisan set of judges is not correct. All of GW's nomiations were conservative.
It wouldn't be the constitution being amended anyway, just Senate procedural rules, but Harry Reid is never going to go for that.
No, I meant what I said when I called it a constitution amendment. 3/5 to confirm a justice should be in the Constitution. The founders failed to foresee how politicized the Court would become.
Obviously I'm aware of Bork and Thomas but they are irrelevant to my point. My point is that, in general, we usually confirmed justices by a large margin. That hasn't happened for 3 appointments in a row. 2 Exceptions in the last few decades doesn't make my point any less valid.
In the times of 90-vote confirmations, horse-trading of variegated appointees just went on behind closed doors. Now that things are so fractured, a president can only get away with nominating a slate of judges all partially partisan in the same direction.
The idea that a president has to nominate a partisan set of judges is not correct. All of GW's nomiations were conservative.
It wouldn't be the constitution being amended anyway, just Senate procedural rules, but Harry Reid is never going to go for that.
No, I meant what I said when I called it a constitution amendment. 3/5 to confirm a justice should be in the Constitution. The founders failed to foresee how politicized the Court would become.
Do you not know what partisan means? Yes, all of GWB's nominations were conservative partisans.
In the before time, it was common to give and take: GHWB did the centrist Souter along with batshitinsane Thomas, Reagan did the fairly centrist O'Connor and Kennedy along with the far-right genius Scalia.
In the before time, it was common to give and take: GHWB did the centrist Souter along with batshitinsane Thomas, Reagan did the fairly centrist O'Connor and Kennedy along with the far-right genius Scalia.
You can get a better idea by reading some of the blog postings written by Adobe's Masinter here over the last year:
http://masinter.blogspot.com/
They include an explanation of why HTML5 being specified too well makes it anti-competitive, comments on why you shouldn't refer to HTML5 as a "standard", why Google is cheating at standards by employing people to work on them full time, and why irrational people hate Flash for no reason.
Basically it sounds like someone playing politics really well.
http://masinter.blogspot.com/
They include an explanation of why HTML5 being specified too well makes it anti-competitive, comments on why you shouldn't refer to HTML5 as a "standard", why Google is cheating at standards by employing people to work on them full time, and why irrational people hate Flash for no reason.
Basically it sounds like someone playing politics really well.
I read the public mailing list thread - starts here: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0349... - and continues for quite some time.
I came to the conclusion that Larry Masinter from Adobe did issue a formal objection to the public list - this is quite obvious from this post: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2010Feb/0002...
However, there was then further communication that took place in a private, members-only list, where apparently this objection was handled.
What seems to be happening is either Adobe is innocently handling the process of raising objections incorrectly, by posting them in a public list, then withdrawing them privately later on, or Adobe is maliciously attempting to subvert the process through delaying tactics.
I encourage you to read the thread and decide for yourself if Adobe is really innocent or is deliberately delaying. In considering such things, I usually like to look at what the parties have to gain/lose, as well as their actions.
I came to the conclusion that Larry Masinter from Adobe did issue a formal objection to the public list - this is quite obvious from this post: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2010Feb/0002...
However, there was then further communication that took place in a private, members-only list, where apparently this objection was handled.
What seems to be happening is either Adobe is innocently handling the process of raising objections incorrectly, by posting them in a public list, then withdrawing them privately later on, or Adobe is maliciously attempting to subvert the process through delaying tactics.
I encourage you to read the thread and decide for yourself if Adobe is really innocent or is deliberately delaying. In considering such things, I usually like to look at what the parties have to gain/lose, as well as their actions.
Well, if you read what the gentlemen from Adobe has said since, his objection on the private list was about how the chairs of whatever committee he raised his objections to basically made a unilateral decision without discussing the objections. So, at least according to him, the private list material is essentially objecting to the process by which his public objections were handled.
Yes, but since all objections are to be made in public, in order to foster transparency and documentation of the process, I have a hard time understanding why making private objections to those same individuals that he had publicly objected to before would help.
If the process is truly broken, get it out in the public and document it. This reeks of the type of politics that is meant to kill something through subversion of the process and delaying tactics. If you can't kill HTML5 outright, kill the process of developing the standard and you've effectively done the same thing.
If the process is truly broken, get it out in the public and document it. This reeks of the type of politics that is meant to kill something through subversion of the process and delaying tactics. If you can't kill HTML5 outright, kill the process of developing the standard and you've effectively done the same thing.
It sounds, to me, that he is frustrated with the decision making process internally at W3C and committees that make decisions without a group discussion. It also sounds, to me, that he thinks HTML5 is bloated with things that could a) finish early and do not require anything in HTML5, or b) prevent the publication of HTML5 in a timely manner.
Ooh boy, shit just got real: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/0439...
> Ian Hickson:
> Since I was mistaken about the formal objection, should I prepare the drafts for FPWD publication now? What date should I use?
> Ian Hickson:
> Since I was mistaken about the formal objection, should I prepare the drafts for FPWD publication now? What date should I use?
I can't wait to find out what's actually going on. I'm inclined to distrust adobe. Their track record this month has been less than stellar in the honesty category.
Adobe needs to embrace HTML 5 and start making great tools around the HTML 5 runtimes. Flash, the runtime makes them nothing. Yes, the build tools around Flash, however, they need to stop their belly aching around HTML,JS,and CSS and learn to embrace and profit.
And that's what I really want to hear from John - not arguing over who did what, but a simple statement along the lines of:
'Adobe will modify existing tools, or create new tools that allow content creators to do 2D and 3D drawing, and/or video, using Canvas and HTML Video, with the output not relying on Adobe Flash technologies '
or:
'Adobe will not modify existing tools, or create new tools that output to Canvas and HTML Video'
Either answer shows whether they're committed to a rich web with these features built in as standard.
'Adobe will modify existing tools, or create new tools that allow content creators to do 2D and 3D drawing, and/or video, using Canvas and HTML Video, with the output not relying on Adobe Flash technologies '
or:
'Adobe will not modify existing tools, or create new tools that output to Canvas and HTML Video'
Either answer shows whether they're committed to a rich web with these features built in as standard.
Their thoughts exactly: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/10/sneak_peek_ai_fl_dw_can...
Riiight. And suppose you want them to compete with any other unwashed commoner that decides to make his/her own tools for HTML 5. I see you have never been to business school.
That they aren't doing this is why Jobs called them lazy. They are lazy. There is no reason it should take 40% of the CPU to show a video in a flash embed on a laptop.
If they can't optimize any better than that, how are they ever going to see success on mobile devices?
If they can't optimize any better than that, how are they ever going to see success on mobile devices?
It's hard not to be condescending about this but this is super basic: Video is hard if it is not hardware accelerated.
Apple refuses to provide a public api for this, so flash video needs a lot of CPU time on OSX.
All cell phones that allow flash video will have hardware acceleration and will not have a problem with it.
Apple refuses to provide a public api for this, so flash video needs a lot of CPU time on OSX.
All cell phones that allow flash video will have hardware acceleration and will not have a problem with it.
Please don't parrot Nack's talking points.
Flash on Windows has only had hardware accelerated video decoding for about 6 months, on minority hardware, in beta versions of Flash 10.1. It hasn't been released yet. No cellphones with full Flash players have been shipped yet either, despite breathless press releases going back years.
Unaccelerated Flash on Windows handles video decoding just fine, and has for years, with no special hardware or APIs available. It's squarely Adobe's problem.
Flash on Windows has only had hardware accelerated video decoding for about 6 months, on minority hardware, in beta versions of Flash 10.1. It hasn't been released yet. No cellphones with full Flash players have been shipped yet either, despite breathless press releases going back years.
Unaccelerated Flash on Windows handles video decoding just fine, and has for years, with no special hardware or APIs available. It's squarely Adobe's problem.
It seems to be the users of OSX problem. Window's is much more flexible about allow the access to hardware.
I wasn't parroting talking points...I just have experience with video on linux unaccelerated and it is not fun at all. The direct acceleration of video decoding is relatively new but I'm sure the Android versions with use this feature.
Thanks for info. Chill on the paranoia .
I wasn't parroting talking points...I just have experience with video on linux unaccelerated and it is not fun at all. The direct acceleration of video decoding is relatively new but I'm sure the Android versions with use this feature.
Thanks for info. Chill on the paranoia .
Yes, hardware acceleration is nice, but the lack of raw access to it isn't the issue here. Flash has always worked fine on Windows without it.
Apple's position is that if you want to decode+display video, it would be best to use the QT API with the codecs they ship, and get acceleration for free where available. Given Adobe's track record, they don't want them mucking about in the bowels of the video drivers.
Accelerated video drivers were the number one location of kernel panics on Windows XP, so Microsoft spent a lot of effort to rearchitect the system in Vista, where it now causes a "kernel oops" instead, and the user just gets a 2s pause and a taskbar notification while the driver reloads. They took a lot of grief from users over the slightly decreased performance and the transition when their drivers didn't work at all, but it was the right thing for them to do. Apple has not yet needed to invest in this.
The Flash plugin is by far the most common cause of application crash reports on Mac OS X. Nearly every user experienced them, I used to get them on a daily basis! Very few of their users have ever seen the OS X kernel panic screen, especially without having failing hardware, and Apple would like to keep it that way.
Apple's position is that if you want to decode+display video, it would be best to use the QT API with the codecs they ship, and get acceleration for free where available. Given Adobe's track record, they don't want them mucking about in the bowels of the video drivers.
Accelerated video drivers were the number one location of kernel panics on Windows XP, so Microsoft spent a lot of effort to rearchitect the system in Vista, where it now causes a "kernel oops" instead, and the user just gets a 2s pause and a taskbar notification while the driver reloads. They took a lot of grief from users over the slightly decreased performance and the transition when their drivers didn't work at all, but it was the right thing for them to do. Apple has not yet needed to invest in this.
The Flash plugin is by far the most common cause of application crash reports on Mac OS X. Nearly every user experienced them, I used to get them on a daily basis! Very few of their users have ever seen the OS X kernel panic screen, especially without having failing hardware, and Apple would like to keep it that way.
Adobe's excuse about not having a hardware acceleration API is a red herring, and a painfully obvious lie if you think about it for more than 5 seconds. There are several datapoints.
This is clearly demonstrated when you play a video "natively" through flash on OS X. Watch as the < SD resolution video immediately hogs an entire core of your CPU; in fact the lagging starts almost from the moment the flash object is initialized! Even a trivial operation like clicking fullscreen on a YouTube video locks up the entire host process and beachballs Safari for 5+ seconds as it sits there with it's thumbs stuck up it's arse, causing you to miss whatever was playing at the time.
Ok, so now try playing the same video through XP etc on VMWare or Parallels on the same machine. What's this? It's perfectly responsive and uses a small fraction of the CPU power? Apparently it is ≈5x less CPU intensive to emulate and deal with the overhead of virtualising an entire PC, it's CPU and associated operating system than it is to run the same thing natively on the host OS. *Note that due to limitations inherent in virtualisation, there is no access to any kind of video acceleration whatsoever, let alone assisted h.264 decoding. You have a framebuffer and that's about it (and even that highly abstracted, double buffered, composited and managed by Quartz as with every other window on the system)
My original MacBook which I still use has no hardware assist (GMA950) - yet QuickTime manages playback of fullscreen or windowed 1920x1080 h264 at around the same CPU usage playing a fucking YouTube video does!
Flash video on the mac has always been excruciatingly slow, even before h.264. I remember seeing iMac G3 600Mhz's struggling to maintain even 15fps with postage-stamp sized h.261 (which is what YouTube used to use) just 5 odd years ago. A G3 600 is several orders of magnitude more powerful than what is required to playback video of that complexity. A G4 867 can do 640x480 h264. Clearly something is very very rotten in flash, and getting more offensively pungent by the day.
Which now brings me to:
What in the everloving FUCK could their code possibly be doing?!?!
I think their programmers have quite clearly gone insane and subscribed to (or invented?) the Rube Goldberg school of software engineering - I don't see any other rational explanation.
I'm quite certain we could have cured cancer while making SETI look like the equivalent of someone with a funnel in their ear and aimed at the sky with the aggregate difference in CPU cycles of mac flash vs windows.
If Adobe can't even manage to lie effectively about the reasons why their own software is so utterly broken, well, I'm not holding my breath for a resolution. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one, though if you ask them it's all Apple's fault.
To think that people want flash on the iPhone. God almighty, haven't we all suffered enough?
This is clearly demonstrated when you play a video "natively" through flash on OS X. Watch as the < SD resolution video immediately hogs an entire core of your CPU; in fact the lagging starts almost from the moment the flash object is initialized! Even a trivial operation like clicking fullscreen on a YouTube video locks up the entire host process and beachballs Safari for 5+ seconds as it sits there with it's thumbs stuck up it's arse, causing you to miss whatever was playing at the time.
Ok, so now try playing the same video through XP etc on VMWare or Parallels on the same machine. What's this? It's perfectly responsive and uses a small fraction of the CPU power? Apparently it is ≈5x less CPU intensive to emulate and deal with the overhead of virtualising an entire PC, it's CPU and associated operating system than it is to run the same thing natively on the host OS. *Note that due to limitations inherent in virtualisation, there is no access to any kind of video acceleration whatsoever, let alone assisted h.264 decoding. You have a framebuffer and that's about it (and even that highly abstracted, double buffered, composited and managed by Quartz as with every other window on the system)
My original MacBook which I still use has no hardware assist (GMA950) - yet QuickTime manages playback of fullscreen or windowed 1920x1080 h264 at around the same CPU usage playing a fucking YouTube video does!
Flash video on the mac has always been excruciatingly slow, even before h.264. I remember seeing iMac G3 600Mhz's struggling to maintain even 15fps with postage-stamp sized h.261 (which is what YouTube used to use) just 5 odd years ago. A G3 600 is several orders of magnitude more powerful than what is required to playback video of that complexity. A G4 867 can do 640x480 h264. Clearly something is very very rotten in flash, and getting more offensively pungent by the day.
Which now brings me to:
What in the everloving FUCK could their code possibly be doing?!?!
I think their programmers have quite clearly gone insane and subscribed to (or invented?) the Rube Goldberg school of software engineering - I don't see any other rational explanation.
I'm quite certain we could have cured cancer while making SETI look like the equivalent of someone with a funnel in their ear and aimed at the sky with the aggregate difference in CPU cycles of mac flash vs windows.
If Adobe can't even manage to lie effectively about the reasons why their own software is so utterly broken, well, I'm not holding my breath for a resolution. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one, though if you ask them it's all Apple's fault.
To think that people want flash on the iPhone. God almighty, haven't we all suffered enough?
> The 7xx family had its shortcomings, namely lack of SMP support and SIMD capabilities and a relatively weak FPU.
G3->G4 is apples to oranges. Video can run much better on SIMD.
A feature of parallels:
>Windows Aero is now available by default for machines with Intel GMAX 3100 and GMA 950 graphic adapters
You have no idea what you are talking about.
G3->G4 is apples to oranges. Video can run much better on SIMD.
A feature of parallels:
>Windows Aero is now available by default for machines with Intel GMAX 3100 and GMA 950 graphic adapters
You have no idea what you are talking about.
If anything, this debacle demonstrate that the process should be open to all and public, not opaque as it is today.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2010Feb/
Some things may be said in private mailing lists, face to face conversation, phone calls, IM etc. but the actual standards, the objections and the decision making process is all public.
Some things may be said in private mailing lists, face to face conversation, phone calls, IM etc. but the actual standards, the objections and the decision making process is all public.
Shelley Powers (http://shelleypowers.burningbird.net/about), who is quoted in the post, has worked in the industry for decades, has written several O’Reilly books about Web technologies, and used to be highly critical of the way HTML standards development has gone. (Yeah, and now she’s on the HTML WG. Veterans of volunteer organizations should be familiar with the “OK, if you think we’re doing everything wrong, you can join us on the committee” gambit.)
If she says Adobe is not to blame, Adobe is not to blame.
If she says Adobe is not to blame, Adobe is not to blame.
Mark Pilgrim, who is not quoted in the post, has worked in the industry for a decade, has written several books about web technologies and remains highly critical of the way HTML standards development has gone. He says Adobe is to blame.
http://twitter.com/diveintomark
I don't think this one can be untangled by deferring to experts - at least not yet. There's still not enough information.
http://twitter.com/diveintomark
I don't think this one can be untangled by deferring to experts - at least not yet. There's still not enough information.
Shelley Powers has tried to block the HTML5 standards process using procedural objections, long pointless process discussions, and personal attacks on the editor of the HTML5 standard, more than anyone else that I've seen, at least for the past year or two that I've been following the W3C side of the HTML5 process. I'm not sure she's the best person to reference when trying to defend people who are trying to put up procedural roadblocks to publishing the HTML5 working draft.
Larry Masinter is also a veteran of web standards. He seems to be the sort of person who thinks that standards purity, procedural issues, and the like are more important than actual, real world, shipping, interoperable implementations. "<masinter> well, I'm not sure 'matches reality' is always the most important goal" from http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090922
So, I do not know if he is trying to slow down the HTML5 standards process because he is employed by Adobe and they consider it in their best interest to slow the process down, or if it's merely because he's an architecture astronaut standards wonk who truly believes that objections claiming that canvas is out of scope of the HTML working group and that it would be better served by splitting it off into some other (currently unspecified) committee. I will note that the W3C HTML working group was chartered with canvas present in the working draft it adopted from the WHATWG, and the only reason it is being split into a separate specification is because of more procedural objections from the very same parties who seem to be opposing any innovation that came from the WHATWG and browser vendors.
Larry Masinter is also a veteran of web standards. He seems to be the sort of person who thinks that standards purity, procedural issues, and the like are more important than actual, real world, shipping, interoperable implementations. "<masinter> well, I'm not sure 'matches reality' is always the most important goal" from http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20090922
So, I do not know if he is trying to slow down the HTML5 standards process because he is employed by Adobe and they consider it in their best interest to slow the process down, or if it's merely because he's an architecture astronaut standards wonk who truly believes that objections claiming that canvas is out of scope of the HTML working group and that it would be better served by splitting it off into some other (currently unspecified) committee. I will note that the W3C HTML working group was chartered with canvas present in the working draft it adopted from the WHATWG, and the only reason it is being split into a separate specification is because of more procedural objections from the very same parties who seem to be opposing any innovation that came from the WHATWG and browser vendors.
It's probably worth reading the quote in full, and recalling that Shelley's been party to a number of high-profile feuds involving the person she's going after in the quote. So I wouldn't exactly rate it as a neutral quote, and for this post to present it as such is a bit disingenuous.
Personally, I think the whole thing reeks of stupid standards-committee politics from all sides. Adobe, judging from what they've posted publicly, decided to play up technicalities and procedural issues to try to kill or hold up a competitor to Flash, and the WG chairs responded by publicly alluding to private discussions and painting it to look as bad as possible.
Personally, I think the whole thing reeks of stupid standards-committee politics from all sides. Adobe, judging from what they've posted publicly, decided to play up technicalities and procedural issues to try to kill or hold up a competitor to Flash, and the WG chairs responded by publicly alluding to private discussions and painting it to look as bad as possible.
According to:
http://www.osnews.com/story/22874/Teacup_Meet_Storm_pt_IV_Ad...
there's no sabotage, it's just how things normally "work" (for some value of work).
http://www.osnews.com/story/22874/Teacup_Meet_Storm_pt_IV_Ad...
there's no sabotage, it's just how things normally "work" (for some value of work).
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Reading the recent "Adobe Bad" threads is like watching HN lose brain cells.
Having owned only Mac/Linux hardware for the past 10 years I have my share of Adobe frustrations, but all this bandwagon jumping after Jobs made a few comments is ridiculous.
Having owned only Mac/Linux hardware for the past 10 years I have my share of Adobe frustrations, but all this bandwagon jumping after Jobs made a few comments is ridiculous.
It's standard backlash-backlash.
First, it was against Apple - "Without Flash, the iPad will suck. Apple is evil for excluding it". Now, the pendulum has swung the other way - "Adobe is evil".
Eventually we'll settle on the agreed upon: Adobe is only mildly evil. :)
First, it was against Apple - "Without Flash, the iPad will suck. Apple is evil for excluding it". Now, the pendulum has swung the other way - "Adobe is evil".
Eventually we'll settle on the agreed upon: Adobe is only mildly evil. :)
Adobe has been evil for a long time. Remember Dmitry Skylarov? Jailed for writing software that Adobe didn't like - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Sklyarov?wasRedirected...
My point is that it was never (or rarely) mentioned as such in HN prior to Jobs' comments...
Generally I don't think any company is more or less evil than any other. Most publicly traded companies pretty much do whatever they can get away with - and if they don't do so now, their next CEO will.
Generally I don't think any company is more or less evil than any other. Most publicly traded companies pretty much do whatever they can get away with - and if they don't do so now, their next CEO will.
Forgive my ignorance. But could anyone link to or provide a brief summary of what the general process is here? I'm not familiar with writing specifications, etc. Any information explaining the process would be appreciated.
I wouldn't blame them even if they did. Apple basically declared war in deciding not to carry flash on the iPad. However, 'sabotaging' HTML5 just seems like sensationalist tripe.
To be fair, Apple isn't really waging war on Adobe. They simply decided that it wasn't in their best interest to support Flash on their devices.
The war is being waged mostly by the fanboy contingent
The war is being waged mostly by the fanboy contingent
Isn't streaming video pretty processor intensive too?
Well, that's just it - HTML5 video will allow Apple to make whatever optimizations necessary to keep power consumption to a minimum.
If video is wrapped inside an opaque Flash container, a huge chunk of Apple's user experience is now squarely in Adobe's hands; this isn't confidence-inspiring given the general stability and performance of the current Mac Flash app.
If video is wrapped inside an opaque Flash container, a huge chunk of Apple's user experience is now squarely in Adobe's hands; this isn't confidence-inspiring given the general stability and performance of the current Mac Flash app.
There is quite a big difference here.
Adobe allows for interaction with the video. Apple QT is just that... video.
Adobe allows for interaction with the video. Apple QT is just that... video.
Not when you have a hardware H264 chip.
Is Windows not doing the same with their new smartphone OS? Everyone should be declaring war on Adobe.
Simon St. Laurent has an interesting analysis and commentary on the whole debacle: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/02/the-widening-html5-chas...
It seems that the whole HTML5 standards process was broken from the start and is likely to remain that way. The recent hoopla is just some public airing of the dirty laundry that has always been there.
It seems that the whole HTML5 standards process was broken from the start and is likely to remain that way. The recent hoopla is just some public airing of the dirty laundry that has always been there.
In the end will this debate really matter at all? So many browsers are already supporting html5 features like canvas and the video tag.
It depends on how you look at it.
If you look at it in the sense that some browsers support it and others will likely follow, no, it doesn't matter.
If you look at it like IE6 supported CSS, it won't matter tomorrow, but in a few years when everyone has to hack their site to pieces just to give a box a rounded corner that looks the same in every browser.... well, it will matter then.
If you look at it in the sense that some browsers support it and others will likely follow, no, it doesn't matter.
If you look at it like IE6 supported CSS, it won't matter tomorrow, but in a few years when everyone has to hack their site to pieces just to give a box a rounded corner that looks the same in every browser.... well, it will matter then.
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Short answer: No.
Long answer: The W3C process is apparently so opaque that even the editor of the spec believed it to be so. Rumor travels faster than fact.
Long answer: The W3C process is apparently so opaque that even the editor of the spec believed it to be so. Rumor travels faster than fact.
Adobe seem really great at communicating with their users. Pity their products have declined so much recently.
Adobe has a pretty large collection of products spanning a rather large and diverse group of disciplines and therefore users and customers.
So are you talking about all of them or just some? How did you get to that conclusion?
There is plenty of things that they don't do very well but that can be said about more or less anyone else out there can't it?
In general as a user of their Masters Collection I am pretty satisfied with how they allow my workflows to be optimized across the line.
That's what adobe is in the business of helping me with.
So are you talking about all of them or just some? How did you get to that conclusion?
There is plenty of things that they don't do very well but that can be said about more or less anyone else out there can't it?
In general as a user of their Masters Collection I am pretty satisfied with how they allow my workflows to be optimized across the line.
That's what adobe is in the business of helping me with.
This is why it's so easy for companies like Apple and Adobe to fight over competing standards. You have both companies with developers that have years of training and work experience within their individual content creation pipelines. We call them "fanboys", but in reality they are just working people like you or I that have a particularly well developed skill set and don't want to have to re-train on a whole new platform.
I'm reminded of the great quote by Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
I'm reminded of the great quote by Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
I think that hit's it pretty much on the head.
I am not a fanboy, I am just semi-relying on their products and the workflow opportunities it gives me.
Having said that if it seems like the discussion regarding apple/adobe has much more to do with the implications of their products rather than the products themselves.
I am not a fanboy, I am just semi-relying on their products and the workflow opportunities it gives me.
Having said that if it seems like the discussion regarding apple/adobe has much more to do with the implications of their products rather than the products themselves.
http://boingboing.net/2008/06/11/sabotage-manual-from.html
(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. (2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments. (3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five. (4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. (6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. (7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. (8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
Slightly uncanny resemblance.