Subject: HTML forms

From: "James P. Salsman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 16:52:51 -0800 (PST)

Some educational software advocates and I are considering 
asking the IETF to suspend control of certain aspects of 
HTML forms from the W3C until microphone upload issues are 
addressed.

I am very interested in any public comments and private 
opinions on this matter.  Please follow up or reply as you 
see fit.

This is in no way a proposal to remove control of HTML -- 
other than regarding form device upload issues as per:
  http://www.bovik.org/device-upload.html
-- from the W3C.  I would not be suggesting this proposal 
if my appeal regarding W3C process was being treated 
seriously; there have been no replies to my appeals, or 
to questions from others, and and email to the www-forms 
list (claimed to be "public" on the W3C site) is still 
not being published.

Cheers,
James Salsman

[The following analysis appeared in the March/April edition of 
"Extra!" magazine, published by Fairness and Accuracy in 
Reporting (www.fair.org.)  The author, Norman Solomon, is a 
widely-published media analyst.  I believe the facts below can be 
partly explained by the closed and commercialized nature of the 
World Wide Web Consortium, especially in regard to HTML forms 
developments.  These paragraphs are reproduced for their "fair" 
educational use.  :jps]

What Happened to the "Information Superhighway?"

A few numbers tell a dramatic story about extreme changes in 
media fascination with the Internet.

In 1995, media outlets were transfixed with the Internet as an 
amazing source of knowledge.  Major newspapers in the U.S. and 
abroad referred to the "information superhighway" in 4,562 
stories, according to the Nexis database.  Meanwhile, articles 
mentioned "e-commerce" or "electronic commerce" only 915 times.

Over the next few years, while Internet usage continued to grow 
by leaps and bounds, the news media increasingly downplayed 
"information superhighway" imagery (with a mere 842 mentions in 
major papers in 1999.)  But media mania for electronic commerce 
exploded.  In 1999, major newspapers mentioned e-commerce in 
20,641 articles.

Five years ago, there was tremendous enthusiasm for the emerging 
World Wide Web.  The phrase "information superhighway" suggested 
that the Web was primarily a resource for learning and 
communication.  Today, according to the prevalent spin, the Web 
is best understood as a way to make and spend money.

The news media's recalibration of public expectations for the 
Internet has occurred in tandem with the steady commercialization 
of cyberspace.  More and more, big money is weaving the Web, and 
the most heavily trafficked web-sites reflect that reality.  
Almost all of the Web's largest-volume sites are now owned by 
huge conglomerates.

Establishing a pantheon of cyber-heroes, media coverage has cast 
businessmen like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Steve Case as great 
visionaries.  If your hopes for the communications future are 
along the lines of Microsoft, Amazon.com, and America Online, 
you'll be mighty pleased.  -- Norman Solomon

---

From: Murray Altheim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 18:58:13 -0800

> HTML forms from the W3C until microphone upload issues are

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Gad. Get a life. Really.

I'm gone a month from www-html and the first message I get upon 
resubscribing is this one. Looks like it's time to unsubscribe again. 

Bye.

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim                            <mailto:altheim&#x40;eng.sun.com>
XML Technology Center
Sun Microsystems, Inc., MS MPK17-102, 1601 Willow Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025

   But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God,
   how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye
   desire again to be in bondage?  -- Galatians 4:9

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 16:26:24 +0930

>HTML forms from the W3C until microphone upload issues are
No matter what may be thought of the merits of the case, such a
request would be ignored by the IETF.

There is no procedure to "suspend control of aspects" of a specification,
and the IETF is of the opinion that HTML is not under our control anyway.

Sorry 'bout that.

               Harald

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, EDB Maxware, Norway
[email-masked]

---

From: Salvador Vidal <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 19:05:24 +0200

Hello,

>and the IETF is of the opinion that HTML is not under our control anyway.
Diferent standars developed at diferent organizations without coordination,
you must check before if Babel tower building plan have copyright!

Salva

---

From: "James P. Salsman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 13:03:07 -0800 (PST)

Harald,

> There is no procedure to "suspend control of aspects" of a specification,

The proposal would involve ammending the registration of the 
text/html media type, incorporating the W3C standards extended
with two attributes of the INPUT element, DEVICE and MAXTIME.

>... the IETF is of the opinion that HTML is not under our control anyway.

I understand that.  There might be substantial benefits from 
reconsidering those opinions.  Within the IETF, public debate 
is assured on almost all controversial matters.  The W3C, 
however, constrains meaningful debate to those willing and able 
to pay US$50,000 per year.  I agree that there was a point in 
the early development of web standards when that constraint was 
beneficial.  Now, however, with Netscape owned by a company 
shipping MSIE, and the stagnation or regression of the core HTML 
standards, along with the concerns raised in Norman Solomon's 
article, I believe the time has come to return certain aspects 
of the control of HTML to the IETF.  Even if that view is not 
shared by the IETF, I the only way I would not be certain that 
a debate on the topic would be healthy for the Internet communty
would be if the W3C were to take an affirmative stand on issues 
involving microphone upload for language instruction and 
asyncronous audio conferencing.

Cheers,
James

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 16:46:29 -0500

> beneficial.  Now, however, with Netscape owned by a company

Why was it beneficial then?

> article, I believe the time has come to return certain aspects

And why is it non-beneficial now, given the apparent complexity of
getting a product shipped (look at the current state of Mozilla)?
Let's face it - anybody who intends to ship a working browser will
need to have enough programmers that the $50K is the least of the problems.

Yes, this cuts Mozilla out unless somebody pays for their membership. On
the other hand, are there any other *real* contenders for whom $50K would
be a hardship?

> asyncronous audio conferencing.

Umm.. Microphone upload is the *least* of the many challenges facing
HTML at the current time.

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech

---

From: Jonathan Rosenne <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 08:25:51 +0200

In my experience, the proper way to develop standards is to begin with a private
implementation. Only with practical experience can sufficient understanding be achieved to
enable the writing of a good standard. Nearly all prevalent standards have followed this
course, including HTML. An example of writing the standard first is OSI.

Jony

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of
> [email-masked]
> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 11:47 PM
> To: James P. Salsman
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: HTML forms
>
>

---

From: Walter Ian Kaye <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 23:05:01 -0800

At 08:25a +0200 03/31/00, Jonathan Rosenne didst inscribe upon an 
electronic papyrus:
>In my experience, the proper way to develop standards is to begin 
>with a private implementation.

And to do so does not necessarily require building an entire browser. 
Since the input "widget" is just one part of a page, you only need to 
prototype that one widget. You can do it in any RAD environment. Make 
a background image that looks like part of a web page if you like, 
and put your widget onto it. Build in your behaviors, then upload it 
to the 'Net for people to try out. Bonus points if you can deploy to 
multiple platforms (REALbasic is good;).

-Walter

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 02:56:19 -0500

> multiple platforms (REALbasic is good;).

Extra bonus points if, while designing the widget, you keep straight
the distinction between "implementation and user interface" (what the
user sees, using THIS GUI toolkit, on THIS system), and "protocol" (what
string of bytes *on the network* is sent to/from your black-box widget).

There's a distinction between protocol and API.  A lot of different browsers
have implemented the HTML <select><option><option></select> construct,
and they LOOK and BEHAVE differently for the UI, but the octets on the
wire are the same.

				Valdis Kletnieks

---

From: "James P. Salsman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 02:00:57 -0800 (PST)

Jony,

Thanks for your message:

> In my experience, the proper way to develop standards is to
> begin with a private implementation.

Private?  Anyone is welcome to my Mozilla mods if they will 
try to port them to Gecko.  Most browsers already implement 
file upload.  The only difficulty is in interfacing form 
elements to various device drivers.  Even though that does 
sound terribly difficult, it really doesn't have to be.  One 
of the most useful extensions,
     <input type=file device=console accept=text>
as shown in the examples, is intended to launch an external 
file editor on a workstation, when its corresponding widget 
is selected.  There is no reason that couldn't be used for 
microphone upload, with the widget ("Browse..." replaced 
with "Record...") launching the system's standard audio 
recording 'accessory' application.  The concept is proven, 
but the browser producers do not seem at all likely to 
provide their implemetations without affirmative advocacy 
and authority of the W3C, or the IETF.

The WebTV Plus had implemented 8000 (8-bit) sample per second 
audio microphone upload in late 1997.  Though I did the spec 
there, to this day I don't know who in WebTV engineering did 
the actual implementation or the documentation you can read 
in the WebTV Plus FAQ.

Cheers,
James