Cart
|
[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Open Standards Processes (WAS Re: Nesting XML based languages and
 This note is about the ISO republic vs. the W3C principality, so just skip it unless you want to know how happy I am to be at peace with both of them. Tim Berners-Lee, bless his heart, made some very good early guesses on behalf of all of us, and, as far as I can tell, he continues to do so today. It looks to me like he has (inadvertently or deliberately, I don't know which) created a position for himself not unlike that of Machiavelli's _Prince_, or perhaps the Philosopher King in Plato's _Republic_. This is a crushingly demanding role, and, while I admire his accomplishments, I do not envy him. Let's enjoy him while we can, and thank our lucky stars while he remains both willing and competent to fulfill that role. In spite of my deep and well-founded suspicions about vendor consortia, I've been forced to conclude that the W3C has been a great thing; by their fruits we know them. Even though the ISO did not and could not accomplish what Tim BL and his cohort did with HTML, I still urge my clients to rely on the ISO as the stablest, most broadly based and representative organization of all the economic interests on this planet. The ISO (or some eventual successor organization) will always necessarily exist. Therefore, it will always be there to inherit whatever drops from the nerveless grasp of shorter-lived, less broadly-based organizations. It's important to remember that, even if the Web touches everything, the Web isn't everything. A happy victim of its own success, the Web is in the process of being assimilated by everything. The Web's leadership will not always be so influential. The Web is just one natural step in a networking process, one earlier step of which was the invention of the postage stamp. Today, nobody expects the U.S. Postmaster General to be a world-beater; only the title still reflects the former grandeur of the position. As for XML, I am inclined to withhold all comment except praise for the way the XML thing has been handled. It's really quite an extraordinary example of "recruited public cooperation", and it reflects very well on both the recruiters and the participants. If all we can see is the political structure that allowed this XML crystalization to occur, we can't see what really happened. It's so much more than that, the political structure pales to insignificance. In the XML matter, I find particularly praiseworthy the care that has been taken, by many on all sides, to keep XML and its ISO bases in harmony with one another. You Know Who You Are, and regardless of how things turn out, may future generations bless you for your hard work and thankless commitment to the longterm success of humanity's Civilization Experiment. I'm pleasantly astonished to discover that, as near as I can tell, we're pretty much all fighting on the same side here. We might as well recognize this fact for the miracle that it is, and take maximum advantage of it. Thanks, Len, for making me pinch myself hard enough to realize that, after our years in the wilderness together, things are really pretty damn good and getting rapidly better. -Steve -- Steven R. Newcomb, President, TechnoTeacher, Inc. srn@t... http://www.techno.com ftp.techno.com voice: +1 972 231 4098 (at ISOGEN: +1 214 953 0004 x137) fax +1 972 994 0087 (at ISOGEN: +1 214 953 3152) 3615 Tanner Lane Richardson, Texas 75082-2618 USA xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...) 
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! 
Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|
|||||||||
