[whatwg] The truth about Nokias claims

[Stijn Peeters]

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.

Fine, let's leave it at that. We've both made our point.

> > 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:
>    [snip]
> 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.

I don't really understand this. The page you are linking to seems to be
about a
relatively obscure HTML tool called HTML<sup>3</sup> (forgive me), what does
the
list of image formats it supports show about the influence of the HTML4 spec
regarding this? 

> 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).

...Aren't those "claims" what the whole debate started with? 

Regards,

Stijn