xml-dev - RE: Who will choose the winner?

[Joshua Allen <joshuaa@microsoft.com>]

> >the Web for FAQs and tutorials.  If the the main answer answer is 
> >"Borders or Amazon", the writers who explain the technologies may 
> >be more influential than the W3C participants who write them in 
> >determining which become widely accepted.  

> Those books all tend to point to the W3C as the source for further
> information, especially when they cover specs in progress.  

> All of this is anecdotal, but it's about three years worth of 
> anecdotal.

My observations with customers is aligned with what Simon describes.
Another dynamic is that people learning a new technology are often
very wary of "wasting" effort learning something that is or soon will
be irrelevant.  Especially in the case of schema, people will
instinctively feel that different versions of schema cannot long
be around.  If faced with multiple options for schemas, people
become alarmed and look for certainty and security.  Which schema
can we trust?  If all the proposals seek to benefit various unsavory
groups, and thus *none* are particularly trustworthy, which one will
win?  If I buy this book and spend the effort learning this (presumably
it takes all 500 pages, or else the author wouldn't write that many.)
am I going to have to re-learn when evil vendor X's standard takes
over?  So it becomes very difficult for alternate proposals to get
much airtime, because the general population will nervously shut out
too much dissonance.

-J