[thelist] Site check: Staples.com

[Ian Anderson]

Shawn K. Quinn wrote:

> Robert Gormley wrote:
>>It's now inappropriate to publish any closed proprietary format material 
>>on the web?
> 
> I would say for the majority of cases, it always has been.

Sorry, but this is just tosh. Have you never read "Weaving the Web" by 
Tim Berners-Lee?

The whole point of the web was the URI - a resource identifier for any 
entity, which could be a word doc, PDF, database, movie, sound file or 
html page. You can publish anything that is appropriate to the audience.

There has never been any implication from its inventor that the web was 
just about marked up text files - I think you are suffering from a 
severe misapprehension in this regard.

It's not in question that there are accessibility issues involved, and 
that it would be good practice to supply material in various formats 
where relevant, but to issue such blanket condemnation of proprietary, 
standard formats is just wrong-headed, in my view.

Cheers

Ian

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