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Re: OASIS/W3C

• To: Rick Jelliffe <ricko@a...>
• Subject: Re: OASIS/W3C
• From: "Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@b...>
• Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 07:35:31 -0500
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• Organization: BAH
• References: <r01050400-1024-60D906985F9C11D7B8F80003937A08C2@[192.168.124.11]> <000b01c2f3ad$53c5a9f0$020aff0a@tsg1> <020601c2f42e$cd337610$4bc8a8c0@A...>

<Quote>
* W3C to look after WWW protocols and specs to bring the web to its full 
  potential,: so HTML, XML, RDF belong at W3C

* OASIS to look after applications built on top of the WWW and ISO: so 
  DOCBOOK and ebXML belongs at OASIS.
</Quote>

Absolutely. As an additional perspective, I tend to view W3C and OASIS
(in very simple terms) as:

W3C -> more "vertically"-focused (standards whose "primary" focus is on
the capabilities at the desktop)

OASIS -> more "horizontally"-focused (standards whose "primary" focus is
on capabilities that span across the enterprise)

I realize that this may be viewed as inaccurate and controversial. :)

Joe Chiusano
Booz | Allen | Hamilton

Rick Jelliffe wrote:
> 
> Standards bodies position themselves to address different areas. As a rough guide:
> 
>  * ISO/IEC to look after specs where there is need for an international consensus,
>  or to rubberstamp some national or UN specifications, or for establishing
>  multi-application vocabularies, for product-related standards, for artificial
>   languages, and for non-Internet/non-WWW technology[1]
> 
>  * Unicode Consortium to look after character properties and universal encodings
> 
>  * IEEE to look after the lowest layers, such as ethernet
> 
>  * IETF to look after Internet protocols and specs, just past the transport layer:
>   so MIME, and TCP/IP belong at IETF
> 
>  * W3C to look after WWW protocols and specs to bring the web to its full
>   potential,: so HTML, XML, RDF belong at W3C
> 
>  * OASIS to look after applications built on top of the WWW and ISO: so
>  DOCBOOK and ebXML belongs at OASIS.
> 
> Then this is complicated by history: IETF has old RFCs for HTML. It is further
> complicated by using XML in protocols: should SOAP and BLOCKs be at
> IETF, W3C or OASIS?   It is further complicated by party spirit: if someone
> is comfortable working in one standards body and has relationships there, it
> is natural to continue working out the ramifications of some base standard
> there (hence XML Schemas and even more tenuously XQuery?). Often there
> is more than one good way to do something: if one body puts out a spec that
> others feel is not up to scratch or misses the mark, an alternative standards
> effort will start perhaps at a standards body which is not really the nomimal best fit.
> 
> I think in our virus and spam-ridden world, there may be more sympathy to the
> idea that we need to encourage viable "second-stream" technologies.  Even
> though standards bodies should focus on certain areas, there is no need for
> rigid demarcations which inhibit second-steam technologies.
> 
> Cheers
> Rick Jelliffe
> 
> [1] "Standards are documented agreements containing technical specifications
> or other precise criteria to be used consistently as rules, guidelines, or definitions
> of characteristics, to ensure that materials, products, processes and services
> are fit for their purpose."
> http://www.iso.org/iso/en/aboutiso/introduction/index.html
> 
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• References:
  • OASIS/W3C (was XPointer REC)
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
  • Re: OASIS/W3C (was XPointer REC)
    • From: "todd glassey" <todd.glassey@w...>
  • Re: OASIS/W3C
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>

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