> Says the only person in this thread slinging vile insults left and right
Maybe? We're both pretty hot here, perhaps; I can ignore that jive. The difference is, I am swinging for progressiveness & growth & possibility. Yes I am anti a lot of what I see. I'm huge anti. I'm anti-fascist, I'm anti-top-down-control, I'm anti-conservative-mindsets, because these things threaten diversity, progress, possibility, & growth. The whole purpose & nature of tech is to enable possibility, to beget enhanceability, & rejecting that is folly. There are many enemies about to letting people do things with computers, alas. (Plenty just need a little more help, some deserve vitriol.)
> 2. I even gave you a link showing how patently false your statements about Google being careful with specs are
That's what I was replying to. Let's sidestep your overreaction there-in & ignoring a vast swarth of evidence about process you just straight up ignored (both times) in that thread, & talk about the spec.
Yes, Mozilla team/present-leader Martin is far far far less willing to entertain any possible "risk," here & more at length in WebUSB[1]. Fear that devices might not want to be accessible, to me, reads more like propaganda against the Hacker spirit & creativity, bends to the corporation owning our devices & not us. We do need to shield users, but shielding users absolutely from any possibility, to save them from a couple possibly risky possibilities, is a damned & infernal decision. Alas Mozilla/Martin not only make a harsh & greatly constraining decision readily, they make this decision lightly & without any interest in remedy, show no interest in exploring possibility.
Martin's complaint in WebUSB seems to revolve entirely around imagining that it'll be hard to update a blocklist to access usb-bluetooth (and potentially other high security devices) devices:
> This proposal also uses a blocklist, which will require constant and active maintenance so that vulnerable devices aren't exploited. This model is unsustainable and presents a significant risk to users and their devices
For one, I'm not even sure why we'd want to block access to bluetooth devices. If a user wants to go to a webpage that tries to act like a bluetooth sniffer (or something far more prosaic), & give the page permission to use their bluetooth devices, I don't think that's unreasonable or should be prohibited. But let's grant that mid-level bluetooth interfacing is just too much freedom to handle. There's still nearly zero evidence this blocklist has been hard to maintain. Google has required scant updates. The concerns Martin projects haven't panned out yet: vanishingly few cases of abuse, and the blocklist has required nearly no tending to. Even though the most popular browser on the planet has shipped this feature for half a decade now. As a recent-ish comment says:
> The discussion here seems to mostly be around vague concerns that have not been proven to be problematic [in the half-decade since it got shipped].
I find the Mozilla positions here to be immoral & indefensible, especially as they stand without any suggestion of remedy. Denial of possibility, without suggestion or willingness to progress, is an anethema, & Mozilla has been unwilling to demonstrate any buy in, hasn't shown any interest in helping progress things. Their pretenses of security-mindedness are damaging & detrimental, & out of touch, inflexible, and haven't changed across half-a-decade of evidence stacked against them. Denying WebUSB & WebHID is a tragedy, firewalls off the web from essential & basic computing that it ought be able to involve itself with, & that is used to enormously good effect, such as the schoolchildren's ability to work with their BBC:MicroBit[2] with whatever computer they have about.
I'm sorry it's like this- I wish there were healthier engagement on all sides- but the harsh descriptions I keep using are deserved. Mozilla and Safari seem to have "ganged" up, & have a campaign "marching" against growing the web. I'm not sure where to go find the links, but like ~2 years ago there was a big series of blog posts by Apple and Mozilla proudly advertising that they were rejecting many features like Battery sensors, Ambient Light sensors... I get that a lot of people don't think this stuff is valuable, that it's trendy to want a minimalist web. But this conservative software ideology[3] isn't about helping people. It's about jumping on a bandwagon, about being vile and nasty. There's no evidence these company's are interested or willing to talk about what we could to offer elevated capabilities, to make maybe PWA's for example get access to these capabilities. It's a party of haters (and astroturfed covert App-Store interests). Yes, I do keep being a bit strong in my accusations, because these people are doing bad, & uncompromisingly so.
[1] https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/pull/368/file...
[2] https://microbit.org/get-started/user-guide/web-usb/
[3] https://gist.github.com/cornchz/3313150