xml-dev - RE: standards body parallel

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

At 01:06 PM 10/13/00 -0400, Jonathan.Robie@SoftwareAG-USA.com wrote: 
>
> This looks like a rather different model from that of the W3C, which was
> designed to provide a vendor-neutral forum. The people quoted in your
article
> seem to have been upset largely by the fact that their forum was dominated
> and controlled by one vendor. On the Working Groups, each company gets one
> vote - sure, big companies have more resources for lobbying, and are more
> likely to be able to devote full-time developers to help with the technical
> work.


Intel's position appears to be the only aspect of the model substantially
different from the W3C.

>Nied said the group would be administered by a steering committee 
>of seven companies chaired by Intel. Two of the seven would be 
>elected by "contributors" -- companies or individuals that pay 
>$5,000 to submit ideas to technical committees and get early access to
>specifications. "Steering committee" members would pay $25,000, and
>"participant" members could join for $500. 
>
>Non-disclosure agreements would be discouraged. Companies would have 
>to prove their own copyrights and prepare to subject their 
>intellectual property to the rules of standards bodies. "This is 
>like an unincorporated trade association," Nied said. "We want 
>something very simple."

I don't find the notable point here to be Intel's role - Sun's done very
similar things with their Java Community Process.

What I find notable is that a community of developers (finally) voiced their
lack of interest in such centralizing and exclusive processes.  

Note Tim O'Reilly:
>
> "The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) has a good working model [for
> projects like this], and you propose an organization where the big players
> have all the power."


Cisco wants Intel to look at the W3C structure as a model, but I'd suggest
that
there's more wrong here than just Intel's position as chair.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books