[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] US Navy MID (WAS RE: Microsoft Hypes Up XUL As The Greatest Ex
Because claims of standardization are too often used to inhibit innovation, a visit in WaaaayBack machine is needed. The IETM vets have seen it all. "The MID effort was initiated by Carderock Division Naval Surface Warfare Center (CDNSWC) in early 1994. With the initiation, funding was obtained and a MID committee was formed. The original MID committee included both government and industry representatives. By December 1994 they had produced a draft MID specification (dated November 1994), the MID SGML DTD, and two limited prototype MID processing and presentation systems that both run under MS Windows 3.1." http://navycals.dt.navy.mil/mid/mid.html For grins, some thinking on this kind of experiment from 94 to 98. http://www.infoloom.com/gcaconfs/WEB/paris98/newcomb.HTM http://e-books.org/presentation1999.htm This one is particularly good: http://www.dcnicn.com/lamp/cals_ide/task05/html/Mid_dpir/MIDfinal.htm The history is a bit sanitized, but the efforts were well underway even while HTML was struggling to get noticed. The team's assessment after seeing HTML was that it would win because it would go like a grassfire, but that it was a hard left into a brick wall and that the concepts and techniques pioneered by the MID would resurface. And they have over and over again. So don't ask for a lot of sympathy for XUL. As others have discovered, it doesn't matter how good the song is as long as the chord police are there to keep it off the radio, and then when a song does punch through, it is usually with serious investment and backing in the marketing. XAML can be a hit or not, but the XULers need to work hard at promoting something other than "we were first" because they weren't. I don't think MID was either. As I recall, there was a research paper from U of Waterloo on the topic of SGMLizing the Win resource files that predates MID, so if anyone has any patents they are sitting on waiting to torpedo these things, you better have some really good documentation for your due dilligence. Since MID was heavily discussed on comp.text.sgml, you can't claim it wasn't available either and the Waterloo paper was found in the local library. len
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