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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: sunshine and standards development
Let's see if I have the basic facts right. I'll beat up Simon
the Saint more towards the end, for those of you who would like
to skip stright to that part.
1. The W3C is a voluntary association of corporations.
2. The corporations involved like to thrash out suggestions
for software technologies, and to offer them to the public
as standards.
3. Any corporation can participate that's willing to come up
with the bucks. The bucks fund the W3C staff that helps
the corporations do their talking.
4. There is no coercion involved, except in the court of public
opinion. If the W3C corporations make a suggestion that
people don't like, then people will ignore it. This has
happened before. (W3C membership is not sufficient to
guarantee the public adoption of your ideas.)
5. Neither is W3C membership necessary for the widespread
adoption of your ideas. David Megginson and his cohort
did not need the W3C to create and propagate SAX. It's
one of the most successful standards in the XML cosmos.
And, yes, I do mean "standard". It has been blessed as a
standard by the only "organization" that can actually do so --
the Court of Public Opinion.
Now, let's see. Simon would like these freely-associating non-
coercive entities, whose only real power is persuasion, to be more
"accountable" to some other bunch of people (presumably including
people who write books about XML?).
*That* could only be coercive.
So, Simon, here's what you can do to influence "standards" formation
without telling *other* people what they should do.
Another numbered list.
1. Keep putting out your opinions on xml-dev. This is free, anybody
can do it, and it works. *If* enough other people like your ideas,
they will get instantiated in "standards".
2. If you really want to be part of the W3C groups, join a company
that will put you there. For someone with your experience and
standing in the XML community, this would be easy. And if you
didn't have that standing and experience -- you wouldn't deserve
a seat at those tables.
3. Implement, or if you can't implement then *describe* Something
Really Cool. A meme that spreads through the community like
SAX has done.
But don't tell me that I ought to be more "accountable" to you or
anybody else for expressing my technical judgements in a voluntary
forum.
-------------------------------------------------------- Mick .
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