[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Open Standards Processes
Speaking of standards and industry consortia... A lot of people subscribing to xml-dev might not be aware that there is already an industry consortium for people who develop tools for XML and related technologies. That organization is called OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards). OASIS has been active since 1993 under the name SGML Open. It recently changed its name in recognition of the much wider role that XML is going to be playing in the markup arena. (In fact, the name "XML Open" came in a close second to "OASIS" when alternative names were being considered. Sun was among the majority of members that felt that the "XML Open" label is too limiting for an organization devoted to product-independent document and data interchange in general.) The former SGML Open web site is being overhauled right now to rearrange material and incorporate the name change; you can check it out at http://oasis-open.org, but be prepared for a lot of broken links and a lot of stale references to SGML (just read "XML" wherever you see "SGML" and you will get the new thrust of the organization). OASIS is an established, well-organized industry consortium with a proven track record. It has done a lot of solid technical, educational, and marketing work over the years in service of interoperable open standards. It hosts Robin Cover's well-known SGML/XML web page, for example, and in the past has developed technical recommendations for table interoperability, document catalogs, and structured fragment interchange. It is now gearing up to establish conformance testing for XML applications. OASIS members include Adobe, ArborText, Chrystal, Ericsson, Folio, Fujitsu, Fuji Xerox, GCA, IBM, Inso, Novell, O'Reilly, SoftQuad, Sun, Texcel, Xyvision, and dozens of other companies and individuals. It holds regular technical meetings to discuss interoperability issues and supports its members with joint marketing events at major trade shows. The best part about OASIS for xml-dev subscribers is that individuals and small companies can participate for as little as $400 a year and can start to get some marketing support from the consortium for as little as $800 a year. If you consider yourself to be in the XML tools business, you should be aware that there is an existing industry consortium that can provide the marketing infrastructure needed to promote your commercial interests. The most important OASIS technical contributions have been in exactly the space addressed by some of the activities in this list -- defining protocols like the SAX interface that are necessary to complete and implement the basic standards. Impressive as it's been, I think that a lot of the technical work people are engaged in here could be carried out more effectively in the context of an established organization. And the resulting output from OASIS in the form of submissions to W3C would have a vastly greater effect than the suggestions of individuals in a mail list, no matter how well thought out those suggestions might be. In short, I think that the people who are distressed about their inability to participate in a consortium dominated by big companies should look into an already existing consortium that is designed specifically to develop interoperability protocols and would be happy to have their participation. Jon xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
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