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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Re: Microsoft and vector graphics (Was:XDocs and XForms?)
 This won't hunt, Paul. No one is suggesting that MS will torpedo SVG. You want to redirect the topic away from the one that disturbs you: MS and yes, all of us, have options. Standards have to survive on their merits. SVG is an example of a standard with merit, but even it's more powerful implementor, Adobe, is lackluster and exercises options over when to develop and what to develop. Adobe gets to choose SVG's future today. MS isn't bothering and has the option to ignore or replace. So does everyone out there. When Adobe chose to ignore VRML and use proprietary formats, did you protest that? No. That was your choice. Options. The issue was XForms and XDocs: 1. We don't quite know what XDocs is. Mike sent a query that seemed to suggest that XDocs is an XForms killer. We simply don't know if that is true or even important. 2. XDocs may be superior to XForms. Again, we don't know, but don't tell me not to take a superior technical option because of its origin or because a weaker "standard" might exist. If you are suggesting that, you have forgotten or just don't know what a standard should be. XForms is a spec. XDocs is a technology. Neither are standard yet. 3. If the market decides, let running code be the test. Otherwise, perceptions poison the web. But until we see XDocs, it is all perceptions based on speculation. The question with merit right now is what is the client. I think it time for developers to begin to look for alternatives to the web browser. 1. The browser platform is locked in. That makes it MS's decision and even an MSThrall has to admit that isn't healthy. 2. The HTML browser is slow and quirky for some kinds of technology. Database forms is one of them. Maybe there should be options. 2. Innovations don't come from one source. If the libraries are powerful, we may get more innovation than if the lockin constrains us. Between patents and lockins and fear of the W3C and loathing of the successful, the web is stagnant. Time for fresh thinking not standards. Standards cut both ways. If you want the kind of web development we had five to ten years ago, we will have to break some existing rules. One of them just might be that the browser, the universal interface, is not the only viable platform. Change takes more than standards; it takes guts. Maybe developers need more of those and fewer documents that tell them where the fences are when in fact, the fences are faux. len -----Original Message----- From: Paul Prescod [mailto:paul@p...] AndrewWatt2000@a... wrote: >... > > Paul, > > In this sector I suggest that, in practice, Microsoft can do pretty much what > it likes. They do have an option to develop a new vector graphics standard, > whether they call it VML2 or something else. I think you are wrong. Microsoft has ALWAYS WON by keeping developers happy. Developers love SVG. Developers would HATE some proprietary hack that competes with a relatively established W3C standard. Microsoft doesn't go around trying to [expletive deleted] off developers. Microsoft also has recurring and ongoing legal troubles. Deliberately and obviously torpedoing industry standards is a good way to exacerbate them. Microsoft's corporate customers also will not like it if they perceive Microsoft as playing dirty pool. Overall, perception counts. 
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