[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] J'accuse (was re: opposition to ISO XML?)
Simon St.Laurent writes: > I'm just curious, for the most part, but is there any reason that > submitting XML to ISO in some form would generate opposition? Tim > Bray asked if people _wanted_ to submit XML to ISO, which didn't > get very much support, but I wonder if there would be opposition to > such a move. There are three alternatives: (a) ISO takes over control of the spec from the W3C, so that it's stable but difficult to change and buried in bureaucracy; (b) the W3C continues to control the spec (with an ISO rubber-stamp), so that it's easy to change unstable and subject to the W3C director's whims; or (c) ISO and the W3C maintain different, competing versions of XML. I think that (a) would be problematic and (c) would be disasterous (what would XML-conformance mean?), while (b) -- which most people seem to be suggesting -- would be simply dishonest (somewhat akin to companies submitting proprietary specs as W3C NOTEs to trick customers into thinking they're Web standards). I don't doubt that we would be able to use an ISO rubber-stamp to trick dim-witted government procurement departments into approving XML for internal use, but they won't really be getting what they expect from an International Standard -- something that has been developed deliberately and (painfully) slowly by a team of international representatives and is guaranteed to be very stable. All the best, David -- David Megginson david@m... http://www.megginson.com/
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