xml-dev - Go forth young man, write compelling apps

[Dave Winer <dave@userland.com>]

If history is any guide, Microsoft's competitors will be less brilliant than
Microsoft, which is to say not brilliant enough to be the tide of change
that Microsoft aspires to be, which again, with history as a guide, they
won't be.

The problem is baggage. Jumping out of the plane door with MSN, Office, and
everything else, weighs you down. You drop like a lead weight, right back to
where you started. A couple of teens from Boston, with no baggage, had an
idea and boom  there's the P2P revolution, everyone's energized, envisioned,
routing-around.

For a history lesson, how did the Web start? Was it invented in Microsoft's
research labs? Or Apple or IBM's? I watched it first-hand at Apple and
Microsoft. Both tried to steer the Web in directions that would favor them,
and neither were able to do it. Netscape, which was the reincarnation of so
many failed Silicon Valley gorillas and startups, did the same thing.

Anyway, I know there's no agreement here. The vocal people have an answer,
it's somebody else's fault, esp my friend Don, who thinks it's the lack of
compelling apps. To Don, I agree, go forth and write some compelling apps,
and let's have XML play some role in the future of the Internet. Go XML, all
the way. (But let's not carry so much baggage.)

Dave