xml-dev - RE: standards body parallel

[Jonathan.Robie@SoftwareAG-USA.com]

Title: RE: standards body parallel

Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> For the only public acknowledgment I've seen of such
> pressure, try: http://www.xml.com/axml/notes/JeanPa.html

Yeah, that happened, it was bad news, and it got fixed. Like Nixon's impeachment trial, I think that shows that the system works.

And then there was the interesting time that a major company called the bosses of everyone on a committee, trying to force them to vote a particular way. That company lost the vote handily. Most companies are quite unwilling to be bullied, and providing one vote per company turns out to be a useful way to make bullying tactics unproductive.

> For those of us not at the table, a vote is not a vote. 
> While I would love to take your statements at face value,
> there is no way to verify such claims without opening the
> archives.

Trust me, if a company wants to be heavy handed, they won't do it by posting messages to the archived W3C mailing lists. Neither of the above incidents left a trace in the archives. There's good reason - anything said in the mailing lists can be read by employees of all 466 member companies. Frankly, I often find that just a little uncomfortable myself, because I feel like I'm talking with just the members of the Working Group, people whose names and faces I know, people with whom I drink beers after meetings, and then someone not involved with the Working Group asks me about something I sent to an internal mailing list. Now suppose I had to worry that my emails were being circulated on XML-DEV, which I read only when I have time, and perhaps other mailing lists as well. I would feel like I had to keep my eyes peeled on all relevant mailing lists to defend my opinions or make it clear that I no longer hold them. This would not help me in doing my Working Group work.

In general, I try to make my work public when I have solid proposals for people to look at, and W3C Working Groups are urged to publicly publish on a regular basis to allow for public review.

Jonathan