[whatwg] Why won't you let us make our own HTML5 browsers?

[Chaals McCathieNevile]

On Fri, 08 Jun 2012 05:05:11 +0200, Mark Callow <callow_mark at hicorp.co.jp>
wrote:

> On 08/06/2012 06:09, Ian Hickson wrote:
>> The dire warning doesn't work. I'm just saying that's the direction that
>> operating system vendors have been going in; that disallowing it in the
>> browser case is not a different direction, it's consistent with the
>> industry's direction as a whole.
> The platform providers want control so they can extract money from
> application developers;

Sure. Although in most cases they are not in a position to enforce this.
You *can* choose another browser - or even make your own. If you don't,
then you're failing to keep your side of the freedom bargain ("the price
of freedom is eternal vigilance")

> they do it under the guise of safety & security so people will go along
> with it. Governments get control over people in the same way.

The comment is sometimes true. It is also true that users get very upset
*at the browser* when it permits things to happen that theyhadn't
expected. The same-origin security policy that is rampant on the Web is
clearly unhelpful in many ways. And doesn't have any particular benefit
for browser manufacturers, except that it protects users.

> In both cases it is an existential threat to freedom and civil liberties.

I think that is overstating the case. A *lot*. Nobody forces you to follow
the way this is specified. You can just implement something different, and
nobody will stop you. That happens all the time, for different issues. It
is simply untrue to say that nobody will *let* you make your own browser.
We write the spec so you can more easily figure out how to make it
compatible with the web - in other words, to *help* you do so.

cheers

Chaals

-- 
Charles 'chaals' McCathieNevile  Opera Software, Standards Group
       je parle français -- hablo español -- jeg kan noen norsk
http://my.opera.com/chaals       Try Opera: http://www.opera.com