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RE: You call that a standard?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: You call that a standard?
• From: Eric van der Vlist <vdv@d...>
• Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 07:42:24 +0200
• In-reply-to: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0405041029080.31233-100000@d...>
• Organization: Dyomedea (http://dyomedea.com)
• References: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0405041029080.31233-100000@d...>

On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 17:48, sstouden@t... wrote:
> One point that might differentiate standard from specification.
> 
> A standard is like a street light.  Everyone uses it, recognizes it,
> and is made better off by it as opposed to other alternatives.  
> 
> Or the electric wall socket and its matching plug, or clothes in the form
> of shirt and pants and shoes, or doors in standard sizes and or windows in
> standard sizes.  
> 
> Standard implies universal distribution, universal acceptance, universal
> adoption.  

Hmmm.... universal seems like a big word here, especially if you look at
your previous examples: your electric socket and mine are most probably
different and they bring different voltages and frequencies. So do
cloth, door and windows sizes.

Note that it doesn't prevent me from bringing my laptop from Paris to
the states nor to buy clothes and use doors and windows in the US or UK.

All these are standards. They are in no way universal but this has
little impact on the overall interoperability.

Eric
-- 
See you in Portland.
                               http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2004/
Upcoming XML schema languages tutorial:
 - Portland   -half day-   (27/07/2004)        http://masl.to/?E6ED13728
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Eric van der Vlist       http://xmlfr.org            http://dyomedea.com
(ISO) RELAX NG   ISBN:0-596-00421-4 http://oreilly.com/catalog/relax
(W3C) XML Schema ISBN:0-596-00252-1 http://oreilly.com/catalog/xmlschema
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