RE: tolerating anarchy (was Re: Personal reply)

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

<blink> <blink> <blink>

I read the email on that discussion. 
It came down to <fiat> by <marca>.

Sure you had rulers and you still do.  
Try to push a W3C spec out the door 
without going through the Director. 
Rulers may differ in style, capability, 
etc. but you had them then and you 
have them now.  The only difference is 
whether or no you get to choose the 
means to choose the means.

Anarchy?  Mess, really.  There is sort 
of a historical inevitability of going 
from oonyellimon to sieg heil if the 
rulers become more important than the rules. 
What web rules did was made it 
possible for the strongest to eliminate 
competitors, by the rules, fairly, openly.  
We want open compeition?  Fine.  We have that 
right now.  Did everyone go home?  Nope, 
we use IE and play together By The Rules.

What the schema enables is to choose 
the means.   If the schema is "privileged", 
we can't choose the means to choose 
the means.  Understand?

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Bohlman [mailto:ebohlman@earthlink.net]

3/13/01 3:53:15 AM, "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com> wrote:

>The web succeeded based on a standard set of 
>generic codes passed among communicating parties 
>via a standard protocol all implemented over 
>a code library made freely available from 
>the originators of that code.
>
>There isn't a hint of anarchy in that. 

Depends on how you define "anarchy."  If you take it to mean the absence of 
*rules*, then you're certainly correct.  If you take it to mean the absence
of 
*rulers*, then I'd say the process was pretty anarchic; nobody was able to 
make anything happen purely by virtue of who they were.  What we had was 
standardization by acclamation.  The rules of the Web were in some ways more

like physical "laws" than legislation; people observed them because they 
couldn't accomplish anything if they didn't.  There was no "if I can't play 
quarterback I'm taking my ball home" because there was no-one in sole 
possession of the only ball.  It was more like "if you don't follow the
rules, 
nobody will want to play with you."