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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] OT: Just a Little Explanaton for Veering (RE: Blueberry/Unicode/ XML)
 -----Original Message----- From: Steve Rowe [mailto:sarowe@t...] >You know, speakers of dead languages, fear of association, >combinations, all manner of new-fangled re-configuration, lost youth >reclamations, thankless anti-monopolistic precrimination, knee-jerk >voids in cogitation, lyrical Grass-Leaved protestation, <?all >synchrony=together tempus=now with=feeling?> LONG LIVE LEN! I'll take that as some sort of assurance that when those trolls get quoted without context, I get to keep my head. :-) Why say such absurd objectionable things? Blueberry is pretty insignificant. At the end of my day I worry more about things like water rights in the coming years. Still, Blueberry exposes more than weakness in the current XML design. All technical solutions aside, the evaluation of the requirements resonates with trends I see in several places as the hegemonies of consortia are accepted: it is an *economic* decision partly, but the debates are often *religious*. So what is the cost of doing business on the web? What is the currency by which it is paid? What is worth doing even if the cost is large? I agree with Bill Joy: some things aren't worth doing. As long as XML is a subset of SGML, and SGML is the property of ISO, then an escape hatch is kept operational for those that need it if and when they need it. I've watched some unthinkable things become thinkable over the last few years since the web became a part of our everyday lives. Because we teach our children by example, these things worry me. 1. Taking the intellectual property of an international standards group and privatizing it into the property of a global consortium of vendors. That "information wants to be free" even when the owners have rights. 2. That if an unpopular individual or company *embraces and extends* it is automatically a villain but if a popular consortium does it, that is in bounds. People are willing to apologize publically for having very valuable knowledge because it involves using the most widely distributed and marketable products in the world and a small vocal minority seek to humiliate them. 3. A statement however bizarre that English is to be preferred. This shows up in other emails from other authors and it shows up in state courts as part of citizenry requirements, so it is not as *alien* as one might think. It is bigotry of course. 4. That simplicity and short time are to be accepted as preconditions for doing work with extraordinarily critical assets because of perceptions about the medium and the competitive advantages it enables. Yet if these result in bad designs, no one questions the method. Except for four, none of these things are terribly new nor do I lose sleep over them. But I have come to believe that the relationship of government to consortium, of enclosure of what were once inalienable assets or rights by private interests are of critical interest to our well-being. Yes, we cannot police everyone and I would be the last to say we should. Yet, it is the second oldest story of the Hebrew Bible; we are our brother's keeper. Further, we are the keepers and teachers of our childrens'legacy. So when it is suggested that we turn the means of preserving information over to industries whose accountability is limited and then to remove the escape hatch such that texts of great cultural value to some group could disappear or become inaccessible, that I think is a very very bad idea. Will that happen? Not today. But we set the example and we habituate people to it. That is why a trillion dollars disappeared. They believed, in the face of good sense, in the face of experience, they gambled. And lost. Blind faith in people to do the right thing is a bad habit. Blind trust after bad examples is stupid. Stupid survives too. I do trust government more. They are more exposed. They are made accountable in the majority of instances. I don't want them to write code. They do it badly. I do sincerely want those who do it well to be accountable for the public commons they enclose. I don't fear world government. It is impossible to create it because those who would be its members would have to hide from all comers, disguise themselves, and if they did that, would need external interfaces. Even if the Illuminati existed, it would be a pretty boring gig to have and a more boring group to hang out with. Power and fame unflaunted is the dullest kind to have. Better to Rock. :-) But accountability must exist and hopefully, voluntarily and with great attention to detail and cause. Otherwise, the only recourse is to regulate by Federal and International law incursions of the consortia into the commons. This is not unthinkable. By nature, such actions are not taken unless needed given the cost. But they are not unthinkable, or undoable. Len http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti. Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h 
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