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RE: Place under sun (was: XPointer and Sun patent)

• From: Mike.Champion@S...
• To: xml-dev@x...
• Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 13:27:04 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alexey Gokhberg [mailto:alexei@b...]
> Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 11:20 AM
> To: xml-dev@x...
> Subject: Place under sun (was: XPointer and Sun patent)
>
> "Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification
> Version 1.0. W3C
> Recommendation 13 November 2000"
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Core)
> specifies the collection of abstract DOM interfaces, as well
> as bindings
> for few languages.
>
> Bindings for the following languages are specified:
>
>     * Java
>     * ECMAScript
>
> Why W3C does not follow the common practice followed by other standard
> bodies, which provide bindings for various *standard* languages?

First, the DOM is *defined* in OMG IDL, not any specific language.  The DOM supplies ECMAScript and Java bindings as a convenience, since the overwhelming majority of DOM applications were assumed to be in one of these two languages. (The most widely used in practice is probably COM/ActiveX, which is even less standard than Java).

As for why the W3C (or in this case the DOM WG) did not follow the "common practice" of defining Ada, COBOL, C++, etc. bindings ... the simple reasons are lack of resources, lack of demand, and difficulty.  The WG allocated its scarce resources (people and time) in the way they judged best for the implementers and consumers of the DOM API.  I've never even heard anyone seriously asking for an Ada or COBOL binding before.  And given C++'s lack of automatic memory management, it would have complicated the API for all bindings to have had to address it for C++.  As for other languages, the assumption was than anyone who wanted a binding for COBOL (for example) could use an IDL -> COBOL converter; it might not be pretty (since OMG IDL was designed for remote access and would put additional arguments in the generated bindings), but it would work in an interoperable way.

Finally, for better or worse the W3C is a consortium of competing/cooperating vendors, not a "standards body."  It devotes its resources in ways that most directly meet the needs of the membership.  Since "de facto standards" are what it produces (as someone noted, only the ISO, ITU, and a couple of other bodies produce "de jure standards"), I doubt if very many W3C members care very much that its Recommendations reference other quasi-standards such as Java.  While I'm sure that many would prefer that Sun donate it to ECMA or the ISO, Java is definitely part of the Web infrastructure and failing to support it on legalistic grounds would not provide any benefit to the W3C membership or their customers.

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