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RE: You call that a standard?

• To: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>, "'Robin Cover'" <robin@i...>
• Subject: RE: You call that a standard?
• From: Rex Brooks <rexb@s...>
• Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 11:11:34 -0700
• Cc: xml-dev <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE03F9F719@h...>
• References: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE03F9F719@h...>

While I recognize the difficulties of the situation, we also need to 
bear in mind that one person's due process is second person's 
headlong rush and a third's glacier. Is improvement needed? Of course.

How to do that is a good question.

Ciao,
Rex

At 11:28 AM -0500 4/28/04, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>And the response to that must be a tightening of our
>language by formally attaching some semantics.  This
>isn't rocket science and certainly different organizations
>can do better or worse jobs at it, but unless some
>discipline and formal definitions are used, the FUDdieDuddies win.
>
>IP keiretsu may not be better except in this respect:
>given some technical domain, one knows who to trust,
>and given some participation agreement, why.  Once
>done, then the issue of what is and isn't a standard
>is a matter of picking a documentation process group.
>We don't need ISO to protect us from each other; we
>need them to manage the documentation processes for
>work we create after signing agreements that protect
>us from each other.
>
>Then when some private company announces they are
>going to ECMA to fast track to ISO, they are easy
>to spot.   I've no problems working with proprietary
>XML languages because I have to.  I've big problems
>with those being called standards without due process.
>
>len
>
>
>From: Robin Cover [mailto:robin@i...]
>
>I don't see any solution to the problem of authority WRT what is
>(in)appropriate for designation as a "standard" since opinions vary
>widely.  I can't imagine a world court promulgating and enforcing
>a rule that "only such-and-such things may be called 'standards';
>language academies largely fail in such efforts, and so would a
>global edict.  We have the anomaly of XML *not* being called a
>standard by its SDO/SSO, while it clearly has the force of a
>standard; other specs are called "standards" by their respective
>SDO/SSO -- just because the creating body said so.  At one time,
>OASIS declared that it did not create standards, now we have
>CDs being voted by the membership to become an "OASIS Standard."
>And so forth, for hundreds of similar SDO/SSO orgs, and the
>meta-definitions are not agreed upon.
>
>Robin Cover
>(speaking for no corporate entity)
>
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-- 
Rex Brooks
GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA, 94702 USA, Earth
W3Address: http://www.starbourne.com
Email: rexb@s...
Tel: 510-849-2309
Fax: By Request

• References:
  • RE: You call that a standard?
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

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