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RE: web services stack

• To: 'Paul Brown' <prb@f...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: web services stack
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 08:29:10 -0600
• Cc: "'letters@n...'" <letters@n...>

This opens up a well-ignored problem in standardization 
(the real standards where there is an industry in place, 
software installed, contracts made, and so forth, not 
specifications for emerging technology).  This paragraph 
points out the dilemma:

"Established vendors quite naturally try to subjugate the greater good and customer benefit for their proprietary self-interests. Market leaders often introduce new specifications under the guise of better industrywide standardization, when in actuality they are concerned about mapping the specifications to their own product sets. The goal is to blur the line between their products and what is accepted as the standard, so that they can sell their software as "standards based."


That is a good example of a false dichotomy, either or 
thinking expressed as "there are two paths".  This i
is the position the person not already in the market place 
takes.  It belies the fact that some measure of convergence 
based on rightfully acquired market dominance exists and has 
to be supported.  In other words, getting three people together 
and writing a Schema does not a standard make.  And that is the 
problem of groups like OASIS which do not require those who 
write a standard to actually be representative (eg, have 
market share) in the domain they are alledgedly standardizing. 

It's a real problem.  Does a standard have market 
credibility or is it yet another "we wrote it and now 
you will use it or we will accuse you of being proprietary" 
scam.

len bullard

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