I would a few extra rules:
- MIME type is either application/xhtml+xml or application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml
- page size (markup only) is under,say, 20kb

Luca

All Transcoding Proxies should Not Transcode if any of the following apply:

1) The page has a Mobile Specific DocType.
2) The Content Type Header being sent out is Mobile Specific.
3) The Cache-Control Header contains ‘no-transform’
4) is a .mobi domain name.

I really think folks are slamming Vodafone too much. I actually think the User-Agent behavior is correct since the proxy changes the header to say “you are talking to a proxy now, not the phone itself!” I think what people are really after is a way to say “don’t transcode me! I want to work with the phone directly.” The technique accomplishes this and works on the Google transcoder (which incidentally should be taking as much flak, since it does the same thing!) and maybe the VF proxy too already.

Now we can argue about whether this is the right standard, possibly in a productive context like the W3C. We can argue about whether any burden should rest on the content author in this regard. And, clearly this change was relatively sudden and disruptive for practitioners, regardless of whether it was right, and so maybe that could have been handled better. But those are the real issues here, not User-Agent this or evil-ness or sucks that or any of this other moral outrage. Calm!

This proves that you are not that great expert you would like the world to believe:
- first GAP and BPWG are very different (and incompatible to a large extent. If you follow GAP, you are not BP)
- GAP totally discard one-web, which is the foundation of BP
- GAP is based on the capabilities of real existining devices. BP is based on the wishful thinking of the companies that happened to sit in BPWG (your included).
- Among the plethora of document that BP is based on, there are some that were authored by (suprise surprise) me before W3C even realised that the mobile web existed.

This article (the author of which I am in not affiliated with) provides a good summary of the difference between the two:

http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/story/editor-s-corner/2007-03-13

don’t forget to read the comments too.

Luca

Duly noted.

…and thank you for confirming that this affects “the W3C MWI mobileOK which means it’ll affect .mobi - .mobi guidelines.”

David Harper

@David, “This implementation is affecting delivery of W3C mobileOK and .mobi standards-compliant XHTML-MP Basic as well.”

I think it does affect the W3C MWI mobileOK which means it’ll affect .mobi - .mobi guidelines are MWI guidelines with a little tweaking to make them more accessible. Jo Rabin does help ensure they both end up doing the same thing - which is good.

Please note that my post wasn’t covering the debate. All my commentary is directed at the termonlogy of WAP and Web - they’re two entirely different technologies, user requirements and marketing issues.

I know the difference.

I just don’t understand why you think that comments like “You have experience in WAP (full stop).” aimed Luca are relevant to the task at hand?

By your own definitions Winksite delivers both (we control our own adaptation).

I’m more interested in your response to this part, “This implementation is affecting delivery of W3C mobileOK and .mobi standards-compliant XHTML-MP Basic as well.”

You must agree that this is not a good thing. No? Yes?

David

BTW,I never heard of BIMA. Sorry.

Luca

WAP = a site that’s built specifically for mobile devices and which only work on mobile devices. This is entirely different to building Web sites.

Web = as invented by Tim Berners-Lee, sites that are supposed to work on any platform/device with the necessary adaptation of course.

@Luca - I don’t see my work at the W3C as ‘being at the top’. My work at AOL and various mobile operators/providers and Chairmanship of BIMA is more relevant. I’m still not ‘at the top’ though.

After reading this:

Novarra to Provide Mobile Web Tranformation Services to Yahoo!
http://novarra.com/press_rel/072407yahoo.html

Chicago, IL USA – July 24, 2007 – Novarra, the leading provider of next-generation mobile Internet platforms and services, announced today that Yahoo! has selected Novarra’s Vision™ server version 6.5 platform to provide web transformation for Yahoo!’s oneSearch service. When a user clicks on a link to a Web site in a Yahoo! oneSearch result, Novarra’s Vision server platform transforms the Web site for the mobile phone.

We decided to check up on what was happening to us.

This is the result…

Yahoo OneSearch/Novarra is providing mobile device search results that link to transcoded versions of our broadband web site rather then linking to our mobile version.

This is after requesting that our domain be placed on the oneSearch White List services MONTHS AGO and submitting three of our sitemaps for indexing - broadband site, WML, & XHTML.

WTF.

Is anyone listening?

I’m not quite sure what message you are trying to convey with your continuous mention of WAP but…

This implementation is affecting delivery of W3C mobileOK and .mobi standards-compliant XHTML-MP Basic as well.

David Harper
Founder, Winksite

For those who want to know more about the story, here is an article that pretty much explains why the W3C initiative is flawed (because of the contribution of people like Paul who obviously live in a world of their own totally detached from daily practice):

http://www.passani.it/gap/intro.htm

Luca

You have experience in WAP (full stop). As it happens, my company was one of the first in Europe to help vendors optimise device profiles. So, I’ll stop here and take your wee boring scrap to my own blog.