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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: How Standards Get a Bad Reputation
 Referring to it as a de facto reference implementation then using that to increase the probability of adoption of an implementation as if it were. Sample implementation would be more what he means but he doesn't know what he means, just what he wants. He wants agreement and he wants the cover of standardization. We seem to be running out of organizations that can keep up with that kind of disingenuous process. One problem of the lack of formality in these processes is that we see the kinds of problems RSS is starting to have. http://tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/06/23/SamsPie RSS isn't Sam's pie. Whose is it? HTML and HTTP aren't TimBL's pie, but after building them, he became the de facto autocrat of the world's largest communication system. Quite a feat. Tactics matter. Cui bono? Maybe Dave knows what he means, but not what he wants. There is a lot of pride in innovation, and when it is first pushed out the door, there is a hard fight. One becomes emotional and impulsive. Things are said. Many are meant and many aren't. If people aren't willing to work with Dave, what does that mean about his ownership of his efforts? Because I worked with Charles and saw first hand before the web made markup a 'hot' ticket, how tough the job was to keep other well-funded and not-so-nice efforts from eliminating it, I have some appreciation of what was required. A thoroughly likable fellow would have been skinned. Charles is actually an easy guy to get to know and like, but he is also a very tough negotiator and trained. He is also a realist. I'm not sure the comparison in that article is fair, but I do recognize the pattern and would have to say to Dave that if he wants RSS to go forward now that it is a 'hot' ticket, he may have to choose between control and participation because now that RSS is hot, that pattern by which others take control of it is set by the SGML precedent. Right or wrong. I think RSS-like systems have a future. Aggregators are the next evolutionary step from home pages. Some clean up is needed according to experts, and if there is money there, it will get done. So for individuals and companies, impulse control is important because what works in the innovation and establishment phase doesn't work in the clean up. Else, it becomes fratricide and gangs. Some say process is bad. Some prefer one organization over another. I am wondering when one should be quite realistic with ones efforts. If the result of innovation and fighting hard for it is to eliminate oneself from the personality contest, then it reinforces that these efforts regardless of what kind of toll gate that results, or the slowness of the marketing adoption, should be done as proprietary products and be patented. On the other hand, if one starts out generous and opens it up on a list, gets others involved, and over time loses control of that process, one has to be willing to relent control or be eliminated by a personality contest unless one is willing to devote a lot of effort to winning that. Tactics make the difference in holding the middle ground; yet, I think that it is hard to innovate and win by the same tactics that are used to sustain and improve after the initial victory. Those who want to take RSS to the next step will do well to remember and laud the hands that rocked the cradle. The hands that rocked the cradle will do well to remember that a teen ager walks away and finds new companions and THAT is the proof of how well that first bit is done. They say the web is the wild wild west. Maybe it is just a barnyard. That's not as glamorous, but it explains the odor. len From: Michael Kay [mailto:michael.h.kay@n...] >"Ruby: So what we decided to do was, instead, open source it, and say, "Here is a >ubiquitous, in essence de facto reference implementation." It's not anointed as a reference >implementation, but it achieves the same purpose. It's our way of increasing the probability >that this implementation of a standard is adopted." >That's not standardization; that's marketing. It doesn't claim to be anything else. Please explain: why does something that isn't standardization and doesn't claim to be standardization give standardization a bad name? Michael Kay 
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