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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Expertise and Innovation - was Re: Non-Bo rg ser
 Before anyone thinks I am slagging off Berners-Lee for his knighthood, be clear that I am not. I think it is an honor richly deserved. My reasons may not be the same as those who chose, but I hope they are: he accomplished what he set out to do and his accomplishment benefits many, almost, everyone. That is rare and much richer than a long list of hit records. I think James Clark is in that category too but it isn't as obvious to the throne and the grey men as it is to us, so perhaps he fails the obviousness test. But he deserves it and for the same reasons. It is obvious that innovation is not "the" predictor of success. I hope it is just as obvious that making serious money and getting lots of use are not the measures of success. Those criteria are much like demanding a woman have a 22 inch waist, blonde hair, a 38 inch breast size and be a supermodel to be beautiful. As a meme, it leads to bulimia and the thin is beautiful meme can lead to technical anorexia. History shows us that success that scales large never depends on any one factor; some set of factors couple and that reinforcement causes amplification. This scales up and that leads to lots of use, and perhaps, serious money. Yet STimbl hasn't made 'serious money'. Others have. He has serious honors and he deserves them. But before any of you out there start measuring yourselves that way, keep in mind that there is no XML or HTML without SGML, no HTTP without FTP, no Microsoft without IBM, no success of any kind in isolation from the world in which that success is fielded. It can take many careers and many smart people to create an 'overnight success'. Listening is everything and timing is everything else. Do the right thing and be satisfied by seeing, if even the smallest and least important by the world's measures, your victories. They are not inconsequential if they reach beyond your front door even a step. If all you want is money and ubiquity, the drug market is looking for a few bad men. If you want the honors that Sir Tim Berners-Lee has, do something that makes the world better in a big way... and be born British. len From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) No it didn't. Cheap microprocessors and memory did. When we didn't have to use a MicroVAX, things got better fast, but a true history is seldom inspirational or sells books. STimBL deserves the knighthood. So does James Clark. Perhaps so did Mick and Paul, but that isn't a historical profundity as much as a sign of what a knighthood means to the folks who make those choices. 
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