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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Microsoft's Role in the XML Community (WAS RE: Important: The SAXC+
 My personal experience with MS public list behaviors is limited to XML and VRML. On the VRML list a few years back, that particular set demonstrated a rueful arrogance. It cost them any support for what was actually a decent design, just too late and introduced with too little forethought to getting a consensus first. In X3D, they showed up early but either weren't being supported internally, or didn't like the heat. Whatever, they weren't much help in getting design consensus. For some reason I cannot fathom, with some of the best graphics folks in the world working for them, they never have fielded an MS graphics application worthy of the name. Usually, they OEM them. To me, that suggests something about one particular group in one particular company, probably in their management. My experience in XML has been exactly the opposite. Once they decided that XML was important, Paoli was there pitching in the beginning, then he sent in the tech troops and they have been very responsive, very engaged and likable. I've nothing but respect for those aspects of their public behavior in this community. Again, it says something about one particular group in one particular company, probably in their management. Remember also, a lot of XML MS employees come from this community and the one that preceded it (eg. Paoli, Denny-Brown). Given the thread title, I think they fit their roles well in XML, and fitness counts. My point here is that individuals care about individuals and that is the most important thing to establish and nurture. That was Yuri Rubinsky's outstanding skill and with it, he knitted together a lot of very angst-ridden folks, helping to hold us together until we had a hit. That strategy will get you past most little problems and usually starts the process to solving the big ones. We can't fix a corporate culture except by affecting corporate behaviors, and that is the big game. But the little game by which we nurture and sustain a community of individuals, the respect we show, the humor, the restrained affection, that game will in the long term, have the longest lasting effects. MS employees also want to belong to a greater family. Jobs change; technology changes, but you see the same players if you stay in the same game long enough. Yes, the people count. MS employees know that even if their boss doesn't yet. As to who gets to set and profit by standards, those are two different problems. My guess is that less than 50 individuals are responsible for most of the XML standards decisions making while a very much larger number profit by it. The journalist you cite has a very narrow view of how it all works. Len Bullard Intergraph Public Safety clbullar@i... http://fly.hiwaay.net/~cbullard/lensongs.ram Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti. Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h From: Wendell Piez [mailto:wapiez@m...] That is, MS or any big entity might not care about any individual -- but maybe they *should*. <snip> The same journalist who made the "MS invented XML" gaffe in the Washington Post wrote again (I think a week ago), correctly identifying that the core issue in the MS anti-trust litigation is, who gets to set (and profit from) standards for emerging technologies. *************************************************************************** This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers. To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@x...&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ *************************************************************************** 
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