xml-dev - RE: standards body parallel

[Jonathan.Robie@SoftwareAG-USA.com]

Title: RE: standards body parallel

Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> So why the vendor consortium approach? 

The companies who need to implement a given standard get together and specify a standard they can all live with.

> Why the secrecy?

To allow us to create healthy proposals before getting involved with public feedback. Participating in active mailing lists takes lots of time, and is not that productive until you have a proposal with some degree of maturity.

Also, to give member companies an incentive to participate, by giving them advance notice of what is going on.

> 'Bozo fees'

For small companies, the bozo fees are $5,000.00, I believe. If you compare this to the cost of 20% to 50% of your time for a year or two, the fees are not the real barrier to entry. It really does take this much time to be able to keep up with the traffic on a Working Group mailing list and contribute, and the fee can be waved if the chair of the Working Group decides to make you an Invited Expert.

In general, I would be in favor of making Working Drafts accessible to the public. I wouldn't like to see our internal mailing lists accessible -I need the freedom to say stupid things in the early development of a standard without having to explain myself on xml-dev. It's hard enough to keep up with the very-active internal W3C mailing lists.

Jonathan