"I CAN see why you'd want this - I just don't think it's realistic [LWN.net]

"I CAN see why you'd want this - I just don't think it's realistic

Posted Mar 26, 2009 13:51 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: Accessible? Yeah, right. by pboddie
Parent article: Stallman: the JavaScript trap

The question of native storage is not directly relevant to the issue of accessibility: HTML is principally an interchange format, and an obviously desirable property of such formats is that the data "stored" in exchanged documents can be accessed by the recipient.

It's quite relevant, of course. There are two choices:
1. Give sane access to the native storage (POP, IMAP, etc) or
2. Create stable server<->client API and build free JavaScript client on top of that.

Without stable server<->client API free JavaScript is pretty useless and I can not see how FOSS guys can demaind stable API from web-sites after declarations like this one. If you care about data at all you need to talk about solution #1 because solution #2 is totally not realistic.

I have personally had to migrate e-mail data out of a Web-only system where POP and IMAP support was not available.

And this IS the problem with such systems. If they had IMAP access - will you still need "Free JavaScript(tm)", or not? It's easier to implement IMAP then to offer free and usable JavaScript on client...

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"I CAN see why you'd want this - I just don't think it's realistic

Posted Mar 26, 2009 17:52 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (1 responses)

The question of native storage is not directly relevant to the issue of accessibility
It's quite relevant, of course.

I should have written "in the context of the original complaint". And when someone says "I doubt very much data is natively stored as HTML", it's a total red herring: we're talking about applications where the only interface may well be HTML plus CSS plus JavaScript, with no "line of sight" to the native storage.

I have personally had to migrate e-mail data out of a Web-only system where POP and IMAP support was not available.
And this IS the problem with such systems. If they had IMAP access - will you still need "Free JavaScript(tm)", or not? It's easier to implement IMAP then to offer free and usable JavaScript on client...

Well, of course I wouldn't need to run a modified version of the JavaScript code if I could have access to the underlying data, but we don't always get the choice. And of course Stallman talks about solution #1, but I guess he realises that sometimes solution #2 is worth demanding if that's all you're likely to get.

Meanwhile, in all this discussion, I think we've completely demolished the "JavaScript is just content" notion, which is what I mostly objected to in the beginning.

"Let them eat cake" approach just does not work...

Posted Mar 27, 2009 15:29 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Well, of course I wouldn't need to run a modified version of the JavaScript code if I could have access to the underlying data, but we don't always get the choice.

If you can not convince people to give you this access how the hell are planning to ask them to give you stable client<->server API - without which free JavaScript is useless? It's usually easier to give you access to raw data than to create and support stable client<->server API...

Meanwhile, in all this discussion, I think we've completely demolished the "JavaScript is just content" notion, which is what I mostly objected to in the beginning.

I see no such demolishing. Sure JavaScript is what server uses to show you tables, circles and other figures but it's no different from how PostScript and PDF are used. Either you should declare all these countless PostScript and PDF papers "programs" and fight for freedom (good luck) or you should accept that JavaScript is just a content in pretty opaque form...