4 ms·

Seriously? Canvas was invented and first implemented by Apple, but since implemented in other browsers (e.g. Firefox), with new code, and owing no royalties — i

by alanh 17y ago

Seriously? Canvas was invented and first implemented by Apple, but since implemented in other browsers (e.g. Firefox), with new code, and owing no royalties — it's now a W3C standard. The article is quite mistaken.

jamesbritt 17y ago
"it's now a W3C standard." No, it isn't. It's part of a proposed recommendation, currently a working draft.
alanh 17y ago
Update: It looks like Joe Hewitt (who made the iPhone Facebook app and Three20 framework, incidentally) created a <xul:canvas> tag even before Webkit created <canvas> (same idea, bitmap drawing canvas), for the chrome (XUL) of Mozilla apps, in 2001. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102285 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102285 Note, however, that this did not become the later <canvas> tag and apparently no effort was made for it to become a part of HTML.
qeorge 17y ago
Is <canvas> part of an accepted W3C standard? I know its in the HTML5 draft, but I didn't think it was yet a standard. The license he quoted says Apple would provide a royalty-free patent once <canvas> becomes part of an official W3C recommendation. I believe its at least done that, so perhaps this is moot?
- GHFigs 17y ago
  In W3C terms, a "Recommendation" is the final standard. HTML5 is currently a Working Draft, but that status isn't really important. W3C's patent policy basically says if you participate in the Working Group developing the standard, you agree to a royalty free license of any patents of yours that are required to implement it. If Canvas goes in HTML5, Apple has to freely license whatever patents on it that are required for it. And if I'm not mistaken, this is already binding at this point--Apple can't revoke this even if they were to leave the Working Group. This was an issue years ago because WHAT-WG (which is not part of W3C) did not have such a policy. Today it seems to be a non-issue to everyone who would know.
  - qeorge 17y ago
    Thank you for clearing that up. I've always been confused by the terminology.

by alanh 17y ago

jamesbritt 17y ago

"it's now a W3C standard." No, it isn't. It's part of a proposed recommendation, currently a working draft.

alanh 17y ago

Update: It looks like Joe Hewitt (who made the iPhone Facebook app and Three20 framework, incidentally) created a <xul:canvas> tag even before Webkit created <canvas> (same idea, bitmap drawing canvas), for the chrome (XUL) of Mozilla apps, in 2001. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102285 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102285 Note, however, that this did not become the later <canvas> tag and apparently no effort was made for it to become a part of HTML.

qeorge 17y ago

Is <canvas> part of an accepted W3C standard? I know its in the HTML5 draft, but I didn't think it was yet a standard. The license he quoted says Apple would provide a royalty-free patent once <canvas> becomes part of an official W3C recommendation. I believe its at least done that, so perhaps this is moot?

GHFigs 17y ago
In W3C terms, a "Recommendation" is the final standard. HTML5 is currently a Working Draft, but that status isn't really important. W3C's patent policy basically says if you participate in the Working Group developing the standard, you agree to a royalty free license of any patents of yours that are required to implement it. If Canvas goes in HTML5, Apple has to freely license whatever patents on it that are required for it. And if I'm not mistaken, this is already binding at this point--Apple can't revoke this even if they were to leave the Working Group. This was an issue years ago because WHAT-WG (which is not part of W3C) did not have such a policy. Today it seems to be a non-issue to everyone who would know.
- qeorge 17y ago
  Thank you for clearing that up. I've always been confused by the terminology.