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Re: XUL Alliance - Creating A Rich Internet For Everyone

• To: Gerald Bauer <luxorxul@y...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: XUL Alliance - Creating A Rich Internet For Everyone
• From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>
• Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2003 09:24:14 -0700
• In-reply-to: <20030608013338.10804.qmail@w...>
• References: <20030608013338.10804.qmail@w...>
• User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021212

Gerald Bauer wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>   to help the XUL discussion get started may I quote
> from Paul Prescod's xml-dev post from last summer:
> 
> 
>>Although Mozilla has a community around it, 
>>XUL seems not to have reached that point as an 
>>independent entity. Maybe it needs a mailing
>>list and some leadership.

Well you've used my name so I'm going to say that I do NOT endorse this 
incarnation of xul-list.

Last summer, I said that XUL needs two things:

  1. Mailing list
  2. Leadership

You've provided the first and I know you are trying to provide the 
second. But I do not think that your combative style is what is needed 
to build a XUL community. Competition is fine but to build a community 
what you need first is _cooperation_. Unfortunately every thread you 
participate in seems to devolve into fractious argumentation and 
sometimes all-out name calling. xul-list devolved into flaming faster 
than any mailing list in history. You've only just appeared on xml-dev 
and people are already asking you to leave. There is a problem here!

If you really want XUL to succeed (and I know I certainly do) I would 
encourage you to reconsider your approach. One important aspect of 
leadership is picking your battles. But you always want to fight about 
everything. XForms and XUL could work together nicely. But instead you 
want to insult potential partners. Similarly, XUL could work great for 
describing Windows user interfaces but you can't help but conflate XUL 
with Linux advocacy and anti-Microsoft rhetoric. You say that 
terminological differences are "hair splitting" and yet you refuse to 
back down and thus create enemies where there is nothing to be won and 
everything to be lost. I honestly believe that you prefer the adrenalin 
rush of battle to success.

That's not what XUL needs right now. Leadership is about cooperation and 
intelligent compromise. Consider Linus' live and let live attitude about 
proprietary software. Consider Guido's and Larry's support for Windows 
versions of their programming languages.

So I'm going to renew my call. XUL needs two things:

  1. Mailing list
  2. Leadership

XUL is a mind-numbingly simple idea which should be much further ahead 
than it is right now. On the one hand you've got its undeclared enemies 
who I'm sure would fight its standardization at the W3C and then there 
is the old saying: "With friends like these..."

I'm going to do my best not to respond publically to replies to this 
message.

  Paul Prescod

• References:
  • XUL Alliance - Creating A Rich Internet For Everyone
    • From: Gerald Bauer <luxorxul@y...>

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