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RE: why distinctions within XHTML?

• From: Blair Murri <BMurri@w...>
• To: "'xml-dev@i...'" <xml-dev@i...>
• Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999 11:17:51 -0600

-----Original Message-----
From:   David Brownell [SMTP:david-b@p...]
Sent:   Tuesday, August 31, 1999 1:08 AM
To:     Ann Navarro
Cc:     XML-Dev Mailing list
Subject:        Re: why distinctions within XHTML?

Ann Navarro wrote:
>
> Part of the problem here is what is and what isn't confidential discussions
> in a WG. If this were a W3C-internal list, I could be more forthcoming ...

And of course, that's the cause of a lot of the problems.

The more I watch things at W3C, the more I feel that the Web should be
driven instead by a standards organization with public accountability.
Being accountable to vendors who have vested interests in bloatware (as
key parts of new barriers to entry) isn't the right model.

Somebody did the basic math in a comment:  three variants of XHTML will
very quickly add an order of magnitude to the complexity of the systems
built with it.  That's a deterrent to the use of XHTML, and discards the
simplification that's long been at the core of the XML movement.

- Dave

I agree with Dave.  The more I look, the more I am convinced that the W3C is not the right standards body to deal with XML, which is being employed in many arenas that have absolutely nothing to do with the web.  In fact, if/when the true potential of XML is realized, the web will be a minor player in that.  SGML is/was not the native language of the web.  HTML was derived for that purpose.  XML is/has the potential to be used for much more then internet publishing of information.  The web has benefited from many technological contributions, many of which predate the web by a couple of decades, and most of the technology that goes into it is not at all web specific (connection oriented stream TCP communications, MIME, request/response, etc.).  To think that XML is a web-only or even a web-mostly language is to miss the boat so far as to not even notice the ripples.

Frankly, one has to question the W3C's ability to deliver a good product (I mean, *3* version 4 HTML's?????)  Let's get real here.  This body has only one goal in mind, and that is to create *us* and *them*, and leave *us* on top no matter the cost.

Blair L. Murri
Sr. Programmer/etc.
WavePhore, Inc.

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