[whatwg] The truth about Nokias claims

[Shannon]

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.
>   

This is a tired argument already debunked. The browsers that won't 
support OGG support plugins (and still remain HTML5 compliant). The 
recommendation will push other browsers (of which there are many) 
towards a common ground.

> As stated before, it did not advocate them, merely stated them as *examples*
> of image formats. Your claim that HTML4 played a substantial role in
> adoption of GIF and JPEG is interesting. Do you have any sources for that?
>   
Yes.
(http://www.houseofmabel.com/programs/html3/docs/img.html). I quote:
--------
As "progress" increases the number of graphics types I've been asked to 
support in /HTML3/, many people are unsure as to exactly what formats 
are supported so perhaps a list is in order:

    * GIF (&695, "GIF")
    * PNG (&B60, "PNG")
    * JPEG (&C85, "JPEG")
    * Sprite (&FF9, "Sprite")
    * BMP (&69C, "BMP")
    * SWF (&188, "Flash")
    * WBMP (&F8F, "WBMP")

-----------
So which of the above became defacto web standards under HTML4? And 
there were a LOT more image formats out there. Not proof, but certainly 
evidence the spec helped narrow down the list. Even though it was 
neither a SHOULD or MUST specification they were mentioned and it seems 
to me that counts for something. So did the fact the formats in question 
were believed to be public-domain. However, I acknowledge the 
speculative nature of this as I acknowledge the speculative nature of 
your other claims (like browser manufactures not supporting OGG when the 
spec becomes final).

Shannon

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