xml-dev - Re: sunshine and standards development

[Mick Goulish <michael.goulish@softwareag-usa.com>]

Let's see if I have the basic facts right.  I'll beat up Simon
the Saint more towards the end, for those of you who would like 
to skip stright to that part. 


1. The W3C is a voluntary association of corporations.

2. The corporations involved like to thrash out suggestions
    for software technologies, and to offer them to the public
    as standards.

3. Any corporation can participate that's willing to come up 
    with the bucks.  The bucks fund the W3C staff that helps
    the corporations do their talking.

4. There is no coercion involved, except in the court of public
    opinion.  If the W3C corporations make a suggestion that
    people don't like, then people will ignore it.  This has 
    happened before.  (W3C membership is not sufficient to
    guarantee the public adoption of your ideas.)

5. Neither is W3C membership necessary for the widespread 
    adoption of your ideas.  David Megginson and his cohort
    did not need the W3C to create and propagate SAX.  It's
    one of the most successful standards in the XML cosmos.
    And, yes, I do mean "standard".  It has been blessed as a
   standard by the only "organization" that can actually do so --
   the Court of Public Opinion.


Now, let's see.  Simon would like these freely-associating non-
coercive entities, whose only real power is persuasion, to be more
"accountable" to some other bunch of people (presumably including
people who write books about XML?).

*That* could only be coercive.  

So, Simon, here's what you can do to influence "standards" formation
without telling *other* people what they should do.  
Another numbered list.

1. Keep putting out your opinions on xml-dev.  This is free, anybody 
    can do it, and it works.  *If* enough other people like your ideas,
    they will get instantiated in "standards".

2. If you really want to be part of the W3C groups, join a company 
    that will put you there.  For someone with your experience and 
    standing in the XML community, this would be easy.  And if you
    didn't have that standing and experience -- you wouldn't deserve
    a seat at those tables.

3. Implement, or if you can't implement then *describe* Something 
    Really Cool.  A meme that spreads through the community like 
    SAX has done.


But don't tell me that I ought to be more "accountable" to you or 
anybody else for expressing my technical judgements in a voluntary
forum.

-------------------------------------------------------- Mick .