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Market-driven vice Committee-driven technology evolution [was: xPath 2.0

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Market-driven vice Committee-driven technology evolution [was: xPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0 ... size increase over v1.0]
• From: "Roger L. Costello" <costello@m...>
• Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 14:12:55 -0400
• Cc: "Costello,Roger L." <costello@m...>
• Organization: The MITRE Corporation

To my mind there are two ways for a technology to evolve:

(1) A committee has complete reigns on the technology and decides how it
evolves.  There may be input into the evolution from outside agencies,
but it is primarily a single group that controls its evolution.

   xPath, XSLT, and XML Schemas are following this approach.

(2) A group creates the initial framework.  That ends its role.  From
then on the technology evolves independently, in a distributed fashion
as the market demands. The initial technology framework serves
effectively as a stimulant into the marketplace.  Cottage industries
crop up to fill niche markets.  Good extensions succeed, bad extensions
die.  The marketplace decides.

   RSS 1.0 is following this approach.

......

My bias is towards (2).  I like the notion of market-driven technologies
and feel that it is more akin to the philosophy of the Web.  I would be
in favor of the W3 making just version 1.0 of each XML technology, then
encouraging the marketplace to extend it where suitable.  [Of course,
this would require that version 1.0 be developed in a fashion pliable to
extensions by third parties.]

What do you see as the advantages/disadvantages of the above two
approaches to technology evolution?  

What would be needed to get xPath, XSLT, and XML Schema to evolve in a
manner consistent with (2)?  /Roger

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