World Wide Web Consortium abandons consensus, standardizes DRM, EFF resigns

[Deozaan]

In July, the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium overruled dozens of members' objections to publishing a DRM standard without a compromise to protect accessibility, security research, archiving, and competition.

EFF appealed the decision, the first-ever appeal in W3C history, which concluded last week with a deeply divided membership. 58.4% of the group voted to go on with publication, and the W3C did so today, an unprecedented move in a body that has always operated on consensus and compromise. In their public statements about the standard, the W3C executive repeatedly said that they didn't think the DRM advocates would be willing to compromise, and in the absence of such willingness, the exec have given them everything they demanded.

[...]

EFF no longer believes that the W3C process is suited to defending the open web. We have resigned from the Consortium, effective today. Below is our resignation letter

Read more here: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/18/antifeatures-for-all.html

[mouser]

Thanks for the link 

[p3lb0x]

Scary turn of events. I wonder what's behind the W3C bowing to the corporate overlords in such a way.

[IainB]

Scary turn of events. I wonder what's behind the W3C bowing to the corporate overlords in such a way.
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Some people (not me, you understand) might say that "Umm...maybe $$$?" as just a random guess, but I couldn't possibly comment.

[Jahandar]

One thing I didn't realize when first hearing about this is that EFF only just became a W3C member recently for the purpose of having a voice in this decision. It kind of puts their leaving into context, as it would probably have happened anyway, after this issue was decided one way or another. (For the record, I think the EFF does a lot of great work)

[TaoPhoenix]

" In their public statements about the standard, the W3C executive repeatedly said that they didn't think the DRM advocates would be willing to compromise, and in the absence of such willingness, the exec have given them everything they demanded."

So if you don't compromise, you win?!