Fergie's Tech Blog

Tim Berners-Lee Sends a Letter to the US Copyright Office

Via Groklaw.

Today, Tim Berners-Lee, director of the W3C and inventor of the Web, has responded to a call for comments from the US Copyright Office, regarding a proposal to restrict users to only one vendor browser in order to submit forms to that office. He raises a number of practical issues, suggesting that use of standards is the obvious solution. He makes it clear that he is not attacking IE:

The failing of the proposed implementation of the preregistration system is its lack of support for standards, not its choice of software.

He mentions security issues , which can and have arisen in connection with all browsers. As it happens, there was one yesterday involving IE, and some responded to the fact that there is currently no patch for it by suggesting that you use a different browser at least temporarily. More information on it here, including the suggestion to turn off ActiveX and use it on "trusted" web sites only. ActiveX again. Yet web designers will sometimes tell you they can't live without it. Some of us would much rather, please. I personally would trade a little less whizbang for a lot more security. But when a warning like yesterday's comes up, and a government site requires IE-only, then what do you do?

You'll notice he sent it by hand, as well as putting it on the Web. That is because tomorrow is the deadline, and they require paper letters, not email. I'm thinking the Copyright Office might like to compare the paper letter with the one on the Web. If they do, they will notice that the one they got on paper will type out where the links are to the references; on the Web, all you have to do is click. Just a suggestion.

posted by Fergie @ 8/23/2005 06:43:00 AM