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First,
no one intended to hurt our Japanese collegues. Unless I start putting
markup around
all
statements, sometimes that happens. Oh well, HumanML has a place on the
web after all.
Second, Unicode is not what I was discussing. I was discussing
markup. Everyone is free
to
invent their own version of XML-like languages given the resources of the
SGML Declaration. This would
come
at a cost in interoperability and weigh that heavily, but don't ever give up
that option. In
fact,
you can't get rid of it unless ISO does that. They own SGML. XML is
a subset of SGML
owned
by the W3C.
Third,
"We have had enough of diversity" is a very strong statement. I
suspect there are other
opinions about that. I won't get into historical cases. I say
only, in my opinion, there are many
things
more important than the World Wide Web. We did fine without it and handled
diversity.
If the
cost of having it is homegenization of culture, it would be time to turn it
off. This is not a frat house.
The
web and the world can support as much as all concerned are willing to
support.
As to
the W3C, it is a fine organization. It is one of many that define the
working specifications
and
standards that we use. To refer to it as one did in a recent article, "the
governing body of
the
Internet" is to overstate its role and its charter. The more we
think in those terms, the
more
precarious its position becomes. What is needed is what we have had
for the past
number
of years, a balance of different organizations that share members and cooperate
on
issues
of common interest. This maintains diversity, ensures that too much power
is not
in one
domain, and keeps all of the members healthier than they would be otherwise.
Preserve
your
options. Keep the commons out of private hands. If you cannot do
this, your
governments will do it for you. Don't ever think that isn't
reality. It is too much like those
who
believed Napster could not be stopped. There are laws and they
work.
Members of world governments have bodyguards. Their bosses have
complete and
well-devised and zealously protected anonymity. It
cannot work any other way. Len
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