[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

RE: Is W3C Losing the Plot?

• To: "'Paul Prescod'" <paul@p...>, <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Is W3C Losing the Plot?
• From: "Didier PH Martin" <martind@n...>
• Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 16:57:08 -0400
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <3D6FCF6A.B58FB28F@p...>

Hi Paul,

Paul said:
I don't know but I don't think it has much to do with the W3C as an
organizational body. Any standards body can produce great stuff or crap
(and I am NOT expressing an opinion about XForms here...I'm just
starting the draft myself). It's basically a question of the
*individuals involved*. James Clark has produced great works under the
aupices of ISO and the W3C and could probably do so in the IETF or ANSI.

Didier replies:
Yes indeed, this is right.

Paul said:
I believe that XML's popularity was a big surprise at the W3C. A bunch
of members bugged them to do SGML for the Web and they allowed them.
Something cool came out of it. That suggests that central planning is
not necessarily the best way forward.

Didier replies:
There are times for divergent thinking (i.e. innovating or creating) and
times for convergent thinking (producing or realizing). Its is like a
hart or like day and night. A hart with no tempo is a dead one and
living as if it were only daylight is living by burning the two ends. I
think its time for W3C to sit and provide a consistent and coherent
architecture to the proposed XML framework. It is not a question of life
and death but a question of mental sanity :-) (at least for us W3C
recommendation consumers). Writing about the XML technologies as
proposed by W3C start to resemble to a tabloid. So, we are not pressing
the panic button but we are just saying: Can you say something coherent
guys? 

Sooner or later, children have to leave the playground to come back to
classes :-) It just seems that the class has no teacher and the children
have no common principles :-)

Cheers
Didier PH Martin

• References:
  • Re: Is W3C Losing the Plot?
    • From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>

• Prev by Date: RE: Byzantine schism
• Next by Date: RE: Byzantine schism
• Previous by thread: Re: Is W3C Losing the Plot?
• Next by thread: Byzantine schism
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread