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- From: Lee Anne Phillips <leeanne@leeanne.com>
- To: xml-dev <xml-dev@ic.ac.uk>
- Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 12:59:22 -0800
With all respect, I think the lack of resources are the fault of the W3C
membership policies, which seem designed to strongly discourage individuals
and small organizations and businesses from participating in the process.
US$5000 for an Affiliate Membership is beyond the reach of most of us and
of many small businesses since that's in addition to the value of the time
spent on the process itself.
Whether this policy is because the big players want negotiations to go on
in secret (and secrecy is inherent in the W3C structure so it can't be an
accident) or because W3C just can't be bothered with the "little people" is
a matter of speculation.
What's certainly true is that there is a vast pool of talent available,
many of whom are passionately interested in the development of XML and
XML-related standards and might well have more time to spend than the human
resources on sometimes grudging lend-lease from major corporations. Witness
this and other lists which represent a collective effort of major
proportions and a tremendous pool of knowledge and skills.
While we all appreciate the enormous efforts of the organizational
participants in the W3C process, who've done yeoman service trying to
juggle activities which might directly advance their careers at their
organizational home with the community responsibilities of the standards
process, there just might be a better and more open way.
The Internet standards process started in the RFC methodology, which,
though sometimes awkward, chaotic, and slow, allowed rapid innovation and
standardization when warranted and was fully public, ensuring participation
by the *real* stakeholders in the process, the community served, rather
than being dominated by the vendors who want to sell products to them.
In one way or another, we're the ones who pay for all this work. Surely a
way could be found to ensure that we know what the heck is going on. Even
better, we could help in the initial stages rather than waiting in front of
the curtain until a team of magicians come out and present us with whatever
they think we want and are then either cheered or booed off the stage.
Lee Anne
At Saturday 1/15/00 01:42 PM -0800, Tim Bray wrote:
>Mea culpa, more than anyone else. But it's a symptom of the W3C's
>#1 problem, lack of resources. I've been busy helping get XLink done.
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