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RE: Keeping ISO 8879 Alive (was RE: Markup pe rspect

• To: 'Tim Bray' <tbray@t...>
• Subject: RE: Keeping ISO 8879 Alive (was RE: Markup pe rspective not code)
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 13:23:20 -0500
• Cc: 'Mike Champion' <mc@x...>, XML DEV <xml-dev@l...>

If it was easy, anyone would do it and could. 

Some time back I made a suggestion that the 
managers and programmers go to the IETF and W3C 
meetings, and the marketing guys and lawyers 
go to the ISO meetings.  Each group gets a 
member of the other to advise.  That way 
the right skills are applied to the right 
task and the hostage gets to interpret.

And of course, working in IETF, W3C means 
working with people who aren't difficult? 
Pot calls kettle black.  It is always a 
matter of difficult people, a forest of 
acronyms, and an exacting process.  It 
is only a difference of who owns them 
and who gets to sign the documents.

... and of the authoritative relationships 
among the references of each to the other. 

What will be hard for the consortia to 
accept is that while they are writing specifications, 
the authoritative documents at the 
highest level of governance are the ISO standards. 
Remember, the top must talk to the bottom 
and an accurate memory is everything.  If 
that makes the process exacting, so be it. 
It will keep the system stable.

I did fight for SGML while others were 
in the hallway lambasting the people 
working on it, Tim.  No, I am not 
the best guy for the job, but I understand 
the value of it.  The consortium owns XML. 
That was your gift to them.  ISO controls 
but does not own SGML.  That is their gift 
to the rest of us.

Last I checked, the folks working on 
SGML and DSDL were pretty well qualified. 
Have I missed something?

len

From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@t...]

Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> Take it any way you want; killing off SGML is a death 
> sentence for the freedom to develop markup according 
> to what is needed over what one thinks is needed.  It 
> is not a matter of moving beyond roots.  That we 
> will do and have done.  It is matter of insisting 
> on coherent specifications under the aegis of 

etc.  It's also a matter of putting in endless hours on ISO committees, 
working with with difficult people in a really exacting process, and 
learning a forest of acronyms and numbers that make the W3C/IETF look 
like child's-play.  Volunteers, please step forward.

I'm assuming that those on the list extolling the virtues of SGML are 
already fully engaged in the process of keeping it alive, and thus 
speaking from experience.  Right? -Tim

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