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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: dtds, schemas, xhtml, and multimedia technologies
 >In my experience virtually every big interesting business app these days ends up having cross-vendor and cross-architecture components; This is one of the reasons I decided I liked .NET. It seems to me that Microsoft is not only integrating all of their current development and business products under the .NET framework banner, but also it looks to me like they really are opening things up to outside add-ons (like add-ons to Visual Studio.NET itself, the ability to make your own .NET controls, and the ability to write in languages like Cobol and have it compile to .NET), and I think they also got the CLR (common language runtime) or the .NET Framework standardized and are working on C# approval as a standard. Plus they seem to be moving toward implementing the W3C standards. (I wish they would fully implement all of them, (XHTML, Xlink, XSL-FO)). It is wonderful that they deprecated their XDR in favor of the XML standard. They don't seem to be acting as much like in the older Netscape versus Microsoft browser days when I felt like they pushed their browser standards without respect. >fear that using .NET will mean Microsoft lock-in and they will end up stuck with enterprise software licensing costs that work like the XP licensing terms. You are right. This really scares me. I forget what the battle was over about 6 months ago, but it was a major standard and one of the big companies decided they wanted to now get royalties. Was it something to do with web services? And before that it was .GIF royalties, I believe, and then .JPG royalties. It's not fair that things become standards and THEN companies decide to charge royalties. Anyway, I'm worried about Microsoft turning around and telling everyone they want their 2 cents for every transaction under .NET or something like that. And a year or two ago I remember looking at the SQL Server licensing as it related to web servers and remember seeing a change in the licensing that made it much more costly. Things like that worry me. I wrote Microsoft back then and asked them to please clearly state that they won't ask for royalties. Or at least give us clear guidelines of what to expect from them in the way of future licensing fees. But it probably isn't good business practice on their part to limit their future like that so I doubt if they or any other company will do that. I think Microsoft's greatest benefit to mankind is that because they are so large and able to spend so much money on R&D, some of the things they push are well thought out and standards have arisen where before there were only smaller turf battles. I don't know anything about the standards boards so I can't say how much role Microsoft had on them personally. But from an outsiders point of view, it looked to me like the only way we finally got standards accepted is that it took a giant like Microsoft to force them down our throat by using them in their products. Every day that I do web design I give thanks for the standards that have arisen. Regardless of where they came from, I am just glad they are here. And I am equally thankful that Microsoft finally appears to be working strongly with the standards boards. They worried me when they came out with XDR. On the other hand, it's scary that Microsoft has so much power. The standards boards must clearly state that there can't be royalties on standards. They should be owned by the public, not by the few companies that had the most impact on developing the standards. Have they done this? xml-dev participants would know. Do the standards boards get involved with a country's laws to make this type of thing a law - No charging royalties for standards - not just a "recommendation"? (pun intended, not trying to put down recommendations) The only thing I can say is look at IBM and Apple. They used to be kings in their own microcomputer areas, but then when they wouldn't move from their proprietary position they started losing market share as companies jumped in. Luckily we are in a free market, supply and demand society, world based economy. If that remains the case and Microsoft decides to get greedy then we will go through rough times but someone will jump in. Look at the cost of EDI implementation and how companies have moved away from it now, or Korean and Japanese imports when our labor costs got high. I hope that we can maintain our freedom to choose, and then I think things will be ok. Pam Ammond Empowering You! website: http://www.empoweringyou.com Please check out the "Wow! Look At Windows XP" book I wrote at http://www.windowsxpbook.com 
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