What
Ken North originally asked is if taking XML to
the
standards ecology is a good idea to enable contract-based
work
which requires citing a standard from a credible standards
organization is a good idea. It is.
Len,
I think the
rationale for an ISO/IEC standard includes government contract
rules, participation in other activities, and acceptance by the IT/ISV
community.
HIPAA is about
healthcare transactions, but we'll see other e-commerce scenarios that
involve governments that will mandate standards. There will also
be domain-specific DTDs and schemas that are advanced
to ISO as part of other standards. Jonathan Borden explained a
recent example in this Dr. Dobb's thread:
One of the big interests in XML is as an enabling
technology for global e-commerce. The World Trade Organization already
has an alliance with ISO and promotes ISO standards for trading
purposes.
There's also the question of acceptance by ISVs
and IT organizations. I still get comments such as "Is XML
something we should be looking at? We use SQL because it's a standard, but we
wonder whether XML is ready for prime time."
