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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: RE: [x3d-public] RE: Which Will Be ReleasedFirst
 Len, Fabulous rant from the inner sanctum. We're just misunderstood, abused and undervalued and paid! After all its much easier to put a team of 30 engineers in a sealed room for two months, get them to build it, file all the IPR, then submit it to your favourite pet non-profit organization as a draft standards specification. Sometimes you can even own the non-profit too! This ensures everything is less messy and maintains a veneer of due process and openness that customers find comforting, and its mostly the same engineers as are in those "other" organizations anyway, so what is the difference? Cheers, DW ============================================ Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: >Lattice can tell their own story. I *believe* that will be >a story of cooperation and interoperability perhaps based >on CDF. > >The case of real contention in the 3D world is over >VRML97. It has become moribund but companies that don't want >to move to X3D, usually objecting to XML, are extending it >with proprietary works and calling that standard.Note that the >players doing this are not consortium members. This strategy >plays the market and the customers for suckers. > >Standards are slow moving. Specifications don't have to be. >Conflating the two has been a source of slowness because >different processes rule these distinctly different works. >The W3DC has improved its speed for putting out specifications >by using the inner ring/outer ring methodology I mentioned >earlier, but the improvements have been of late, and not as >noticeable in the beginning when the fight over the next >generation design was fierce and awkward. > >Here are things that slow us down: > >1. The game: companies and individuals sign up on the >specification lists and after a honeymoon of 'cooperation' >begin to argue endlessly without consensus. A strong chair >and a clear process are needed, and the fact that some parties >will walk off in a huff claiming they have been hoodwinked >in some way is why that process has to be clear. It also >has to be an acceptable outcome. > >2. Open lists without membership or participation agreements: >Too many people come for the endorphin rush. They want to be >heard regardless of the impact. They are inexperienced and >ignore the process and the goals. Without membership, they >have little incentive to cooperate and without the participation >agreement, are not bound to the process. Believing they can >run to slashdot to plead their case, they keep working against >the process. Being asked to leave the working group has to be >an acceptable outcome. > >3. In medias rex: technologies worthy of standards are already >robust. Each company has its own version and that leads to the >problems in item 1. The technologies are similar on the surface >but not in the details. No one wants to start over. They see >the standard as a marketing ploy, not a means to help the market >grow or protect the customers' ownership and control of their >information. After some period of negotiation, if the company >cannot come to agreement, being asked to leave the working group >has to be an acceptable outcome. > >4. Too many players in the game. Markets with too many players >eventually sort that out and players fade. If they are resources >for the spec creation, that's a bad thing. Spec teams usually >come down to a few major contributors and a chorus. Where one fits >into those categories has a lot to do with competence and willingness >to compromise. > >Open source is a way of enabling companies to converge on technical >implementations or get started. Full stop. Open source can be >used as a sample implementation to proof the specification or to >help jump-start efforts. As a reference implementation, they can >kill off innovation and nail the specification to an early and >possibly flawed implementation that becomes the de facto standard. >On the other hand, if there is to be a reference implementation, >open source is the way to go. The strategy one chooses here depends >on things like whether or not the specification or standard has >an accompanying object model as for example, X3D does. Even then, >the larger problem of interoperation in an environment such as >a browser and operating system where the implementation of the >cross-object communications languages such as the scripting language >has incompatibilities means the problems aren't completely solved. > >I understand the philosophy of going with what is working now. But >it is a short term fix to a long term problem and it exacerbates the >difficulty of getting a longer term solution. Perhaps it is the >case that longer term solutions aren't desirable and one punts back >to relying on XML to ensure one has a 50/50 chance of getting the >semantic information back out of the data when the inevitable >migration occurs. XML is at its best, a lifecycle option. The >rest comes down to platforms and market share. Licensing is a >normal business model. Companies that can't afford to license >may be playing over their heads, but open source is an excellent >alternative where they contribute in-kind. Free riders are the >problem there, but part of that ecology. It's like a kid catching >measles: not good but not avoidable without more expensive and >thus unacceptable tactics. > >Microsoft played the game better and faster. That's all. As >in any king of the hill game, staying on the top is the real >challenge. The choice to be a good citizen and on the right >side of history has costs. Some pay willingly; others cite >self-interest; some come back to the standard. With the rare >exception of HTML, very few technologies are standing still. > >We create specifications to get new technology up to scale. >We create standards to protect our customers from us. > >len > >From: Niclas Olofsson [mailto:nicke.olofsson@h...] > > > >Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: > > >>Probably a good product, but a product that only interoperates >>with itself is a pretty risky investment these days. >> >> > >I have different opinion. Sort of. The example given was perhaps not the >best one, since they do seem to interoperate with what is important in >that area of business. Risky is the other way around, going with >standards. Standards (like VRML) is slow moving creatures, and companies >can't really afford to wait for stuff to happen in a standard. They do >what seem fit at the time they need it. *Most of the time* I've been in >projects looking at standards, the management (perhaps badly advised) >have chosen to go with what we need instead. May that be implementing >parts of a standard or not, but never to go for the complete standard. >You must understand that I usually work in medium-sized startup >companies. If it wasn't for opensource, standards wouldn't stand a >chance in that environment. It's far to expensive and time consuming to >stick with standards. The normal scenario would be to buy 3'rd party >products, and unless you have a paying customer, that's not going to >happen. This is product development companies, not consulting. The only >thing that we have actually payed for, Ever, I think is our development >environment and licences for MS Office. > >The best a standards-based product selling company really can do, is to >rely on "piracy" to sell their products. Far to many products today you >can't even download and develop with, without paying development licence >for it. Risky business for me is when you can't afford to have >developers doing exactly that, because you have a product that you'd >rather sell to one unhappy customer (that didn't get what he expected), >instead of 100 happy ones that knew beforehand what they bought. Jasc >did a great job on this (PaintShop). It was the first (really the first) >software I downloaded out of internet. I could use it for free and >learned it. Over the years I've bought at least 5 or 6 licences from >them. Just because I could use it for free in the beginning. We all know >how that works, don't we. > >But OSS is the joker in the game. With open source software, standards >stand a chance. And that's where it works. You trade into a standard >that you get for free, until you know you have it working (and someone >is paying for it), then you can go hunt for faster implementations. >Better support. Nicer logotypes. Whatever you need. And only then you >pay for it. > >How to get X3D to fit into this is however darkness. It just doesn't >seem to fit into the eco-system of software development... you know len, >when you have a company like Lattice (which seem to be featured on the >Web3D CD btw), it stands pretty strong againts X3D. Why interoperate >based on a standard, when you have no competition? It's not like >Microsoft lost the war, did they? > >Very little about X3D ... > >Cheers, >/Niclas > >----------------------------------------------------------------- >The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an >initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> > >The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > >To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription >manager: <http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/index.php> > > > > > 
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