6 ms·

The chaos and banditry is caused by software churn. Nothing is ever finished, so nothing is ever secure, so you must ally yourself with a powerful warlord. Thi

by jl6 6y ago

The chaos and banditry is caused by software churn. Nothing is ever finished, so nothing is ever secure, so you must ally yourself with a powerful warlord. This is why I am in the process of migrating my website from HTML to PDF/A.

mwcampbell 6y ago
> This is why I am in the process of migrating my website from HTML to PDF/A. With tags for accessibility, I hope.
- konjin 6y ago
  Who cares? We should not force the majority to be serfs so a minority is served.
  - ksm1717 6y ago
    You’re a serf
  - coldtea 6y ago
    You can very easily end up in that "minority". It's just an accident or disease away -- and if not, time and old age will get you anyway (presbyopia, motor decline, and so on).
    - konjin 6y ago
      I use a screen reader already. It is sad that you're so selfish that you can't imagine minorities would be willing to give up quality of life to improve it for the majority.
      - coldtea 6y ago
        >It is sad that you're so selfish Is that how you've been taught to discuss? With ad-hominens, absolute self-certainty on your prioritizations, and pop psychology attacks?
        konjin 6y ago
        A discussion is impossible when one side assumes the other is arguing in bad faith. You started from the assumption I need sight to navigate and when I pointed out I don't you doubled down on sanctimoniousness. Again: why should the needs of the few trump the needs of the many?
        coldtea 6y ago
        >You started from the assumption I need sight to navigate Yes, and it was a legitimate assumption, given that your comment implied as much (speaking of those people as a minority in the third person, saying "who cares" about those, etc). There certainly wasn't any "I am a person with accessibility issues myself, and I consider open formats for the majority more important than accessible content" implication. >Again: why should the needs of the few trump the needs of the many? First, disabled / elderly etc. people being able to have access to content, knowledge, entertainment, isn't just some random small thing we can just toss aside. Nor does it concern some insignificant minority we could ignore with minimal loss. Second, putting out unaccessible PDF content is 100% certain to be problematic for people with accessibility needs. Whereas having HTML instead of PDFs (the latter being what the grandfather suggested and you supported) is far from certain to make people "serfs" (which is a loaded metaphor from feudal times) or to be of much significance. If anything HTML is open source and free, and implementing a browser to read basic HTML (as opposed to full WPAs) is trivial - more trivial than PDF for that matter, and with more FOSS browser engines in existance, from full-on to minimal like Links. So even at the basic factual level the concern is misplaced.
        konjin 6y ago
        >Second, putting out unaccessible PDF content is 100% certain to be problematic for people with accessibility needs. That's where you're wrong. A plain PDF/A is the simplest thing to scrape for text. You know what is a nightmare to deal with? Html with javascript: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Try a screen reader on the above nightmare and tell me what you hear. For me it's: iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe... turning it into a png and trying to scrape text doesn't help because there is literally zero predictable structure to the text, is it one, two, three or 8 columns wide? Depends on where in the page you look. So again, thanks for the outrage, but we don't need people like you who don't understand the first thing about what we go through defending us and shitting on people trying to make the world better.
- jl6 6y ago
  Yes. I use LibreOffice Writer to export Tagged PDF/A-2b.
mxuribe 6y ago
>...migrating my website from HTML to PDF/A. I'm genuinely curious as to how having an online presence (like a website) implemented as PDF is advantageous? Do PDFs offer some security or authenticity of content that html lacks? Not bashing, really just want to learn.
- baud147258 6y ago
  I think the idea of using PDF/A is that you only have to maintain a single file that contains all the content, without external dependencies like pictures or fonts. It also supports ways to sign the file, to protect its integrity. At least it's how I understand it. Edit: following the link on the parent's profile, there's a few explanations (in https://www.lab6.com/0 https://www.lab6.com/0): """ PDF makes a stand against the churn. I’m publishing this document in PDF because: - PDFs are self-contained and offlineable - PDFs are files. - PDFs are decentralised. - PDFs are discoverable. - PDFs are independent of browsers - PDFs and a PDF tool ecosystem exist today - PDF is an open standard - PDFs are part of the web - PDFs are page-oriented """ (abridged for readability, each of the bullet points are expanded in the document)
- jl6 6y ago
  Thank you to the sibling content for quoting the headlines from my polemic, but yes, validated PDF/A is guaranteed to contain only static content with no tracking malfeatures and a vastly reduced attack surface compared to HTML5. It’s hilariously impractical if your goal is to build a web application, so a direct comparison to HTML5 isn’t fair, but if you just want to publish information, PDF/A is state of the art.
api 6y ago
This is a really good point. The endless and often needless churn in software creates a treadmill effect, making it really hard for open source and smaller companies to keep up. It inherently favors large players with deep pockets able to employ vast numbers of developers.
ericwood 6y ago
This confuses me; the core of HTML is relatively unchanged since its inception and static HTML is fairly secure. PDF is notoriously complex and has had many security issues associated with it as a result. Regardless, if it's content you're producing I'm imagining it can be done securely with either format?
- jl6 6y ago
  PDF is notoriously complex but PDF/A isn’t.
- selfhoster11 6y ago
  PDF/A is a reduced subset of PDF, optimised for archival storage. A compliant PDF/A reader has a greatly reduced attack surface compared to a full PDF format reader.
  - walterbell 6y ago
    Any recommended readers?
    - jl6 6y ago
      pdf.js in Firefox - as it’s sandboxed. Safari on iOS also natively displays web-hosted PDFs very snappily. Okular is an excellent PDF reader for the Linux desktop and supports attachments.
- tomjen3 6y ago
  PDF/A is meant for archive purposes (e.g remain pixel perfectly the same when read out of some tape archive 50 years from now archival purposes) and doesn't allow things like javascript. Plus it requires fonts to be embedded.
twic 6y ago
Buddy just post one big PNG.

by jl6 6y ago

mwcampbell 6y ago

> This is why I am in the process of migrating my website from HTML to PDF/A. With tags for accessibility, I hope.

konjin 6y ago
Who cares? We should not force the majority to be serfs so a minority is served.
- ksm1717 6y ago
  You’re a serf
- coldtea 6y ago
  You can very easily end up in that "minority". It's just an accident or disease away -- and if not, time and old age will get you anyway (presbyopia, motor decline, and so on).
  - konjin 6y ago
    I use a screen reader already. It is sad that you're so selfish that you can't imagine minorities would be willing to give up quality of life to improve it for the majority.
    - coldtea 6y ago
      >It is sad that you're so selfish Is that how you've been taught to discuss? With ad-hominens, absolute self-certainty on your prioritizations, and pop psychology attacks?
      - konjin 6y ago
        A discussion is impossible when one side assumes the other is arguing in bad faith. You started from the assumption I need sight to navigate and when I pointed out I don't you doubled down on sanctimoniousness. Again: why should the needs of the few trump the needs of the many?
        coldtea 6y ago
        >You started from the assumption I need sight to navigate Yes, and it was a legitimate assumption, given that your comment implied as much (speaking of those people as a minority in the third person, saying "who cares" about those, etc). There certainly wasn't any "I am a person with accessibility issues myself, and I consider open formats for the majority more important than accessible content" implication. >Again: why should the needs of the few trump the needs of the many? First, disabled / elderly etc. people being able to have access to content, knowledge, entertainment, isn't just some random small thing we can just toss aside. Nor does it concern some insignificant minority we could ignore with minimal loss. Second, putting out unaccessible PDF content is 100% certain to be problematic for people with accessibility needs. Whereas having HTML instead of PDFs (the latter being what the grandfather suggested and you supported) is far from certain to make people "serfs" (which is a loaded metaphor from feudal times) or to be of much significance. If anything HTML is open source and free, and implementing a browser to read basic HTML (as opposed to full WPAs) is trivial - more trivial than PDF for that matter, and with more FOSS browser engines in existance, from full-on to minimal like Links. So even at the basic factual level the concern is misplaced.
        konjin 6y ago
        >Second, putting out unaccessible PDF content is 100% certain to be problematic for people with accessibility needs. That's where you're wrong. A plain PDF/A is the simplest thing to scrape for text. You know what is a nightmare to deal with? Html with javascript: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Try a screen reader on the above nightmare and tell me what you hear. For me it's: iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe-iframe... turning it into a png and trying to scrape text doesn't help because there is literally zero predictable structure to the text, is it one, two, three or 8 columns wide? Depends on where in the page you look. So again, thanks for the outrage, but we don't need people like you who don't understand the first thing about what we go through defending us and shitting on people trying to make the world better.
jl6 6y ago
Yes. I use LibreOffice Writer to export Tagged PDF/A-2b.

mxuribe 6y ago

>...migrating my website from HTML to PDF/A. I'm genuinely curious as to how having an online presence (like a website) implemented as PDF is advantageous? Do PDFs offer some security or authenticity of content that html lacks? Not bashing, really just want to learn.

baud147258 6y ago
I think the idea of using PDF/A is that you only have to maintain a single file that contains all the content, without external dependencies like pictures or fonts. It also supports ways to sign the file, to protect its integrity. At least it's how I understand it. Edit: following the link on the parent's profile, there's a few explanations (in https://www.lab6.com/0 https://www.lab6.com/0): """ PDF makes a stand against the churn. I’m publishing this document in PDF because: - PDFs are self-contained and offlineable - PDFs are files. - PDFs are decentralised. - PDFs are discoverable. - PDFs are independent of browsers - PDFs and a PDF tool ecosystem exist today - PDF is an open standard - PDFs are part of the web - PDFs are page-oriented """ (abridged for readability, each of the bullet points are expanded in the document)
jl6 6y ago
Thank you to the sibling content for quoting the headlines from my polemic, but yes, validated PDF/A is guaranteed to contain only static content with no tracking malfeatures and a vastly reduced attack surface compared to HTML5. It’s hilariously impractical if your goal is to build a web application, so a direct comparison to HTML5 isn’t fair, but if you just want to publish information, PDF/A is state of the art.

api 6y ago

This is a really good point. The endless and often needless churn in software creates a treadmill effect, making it really hard for open source and smaller companies to keep up. It inherently favors large players with deep pockets able to employ vast numbers of developers.

ericwood 6y ago

This confuses me; the core of HTML is relatively unchanged since its inception and static HTML is fairly secure. PDF is notoriously complex and has had many security issues associated with it as a result. Regardless, if it's content you're producing I'm imagining it can be done securely with either format?

jl6 6y ago
PDF is notoriously complex but PDF/A isn’t.
selfhoster11 6y ago
PDF/A is a reduced subset of PDF, optimised for archival storage. A compliant PDF/A reader has a greatly reduced attack surface compared to a full PDF format reader.
- walterbell 6y ago
  Any recommended readers?
  - jl6 6y ago
    pdf.js in Firefox - as it’s sandboxed. Safari on iOS also natively displays web-hosted PDFs very snappily. Okular is an excellent PDF reader for the Linux desktop and supports attachments.
tomjen3 6y ago
PDF/A is meant for archive purposes (e.g remain pixel perfectly the same when read out of some tape archive 50 years from now archival purposes) and doesn't allow things like javascript. Plus it requires fonts to be embedded.

twic 6y ago

Buddy just post one big PNG.