-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Sergeant [SMTP:matt@sergeant.org]
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 8:19 AM
To: Bill dehOra
Cc: xml-dev@xml.org
Subject: RE: sunshine and standards development
I guess we're not seeing the same thing here. I see a closed shop where
the companies with the mega-bucks can start working on their
implementations very early on. You seem to see the world where that is a
necessary evil, and I disagree with you. The way I see the world is that a
standards organisation should not be in in the market for help businesses
further their self worth - they should be in the business of producing
standards.
I guess by that definition the W3C is not a "standards organization", never was, never will be. I think you would be more successful looking to the ISO for "real standards" than trying to persuade the W3C of the error of its ways.
My basic conclusion from reading these threads for the last week or so is that there is room in the XML community for wide-open collaboration to incubate technologies (IETF or OASIS TC's ???), less open collaboration on how to compete in the technology space without imposing undue misery on the industry (the W3C?), and a formal process for creating carved-in-stone standards (ISO?). Each of these occupies a useful niche in the ecology of the Internet, it's a waste of time to try to get one organization to do it all or to force any organization to live by the rules of a different niche.
