Home for independent open specifications (was: Collected Works of SAX)

[Eric van der Vlist <vdv@dyomedea.com>]

David Brownell wrote:
> 
> >From Len:
> 
> >    They
> > have some good rules about the labeling of such assets
> > that enable them to stay public.   We had to look at this
> > for HumanML and the OASIS rules are as open as it is
> > possible for an org to be.
> 
> I'll accept that for argument:  Given that's so, there's
> still no implication that OASIS process/rules need to
> be the answer for SAX.  There's been no case made
> one way or another, from what I see.

The fact that the OASIS rules are (or are not) compatible with a project
doesn't necessarily mean that OASIS is an appropriate place for the
project...

(The fact that I have enough money to buy something doesn't need that I
need nor want to buy it).

The most important question IMHO is to wonder if the goals of the
project and those of OASIS are compatible.

<quote xlink:href="http://www.oasis-open.org/who/">OASIS, the
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, is
a non-profit, international consortium that creates interoperable
industry specifications based on public standards such as XML and SGML,
as well as others that are related to structured information
processing.</quote>

Even though OASIS is open to individual members, it's (like the W3C) a
consortium of industrials interested in defining "interoperable
industry specifications".

How valuable and useful this goal might be for the industry, as an
independent developer, I don't feel comfortable under the shadow of the
big sponsors of industry consortiums and I think that a home for
independent open specifications is a need that hasn't been met yet.

Similar problems in the open source world have found answers such as
SourceForge or Apache and there is probably a niche for either a neutral
infrastructure provider for open specification projects (like
SourceForge for open source project) and/or a "meritocratic"
organization (like Apache in the open source arena).

To come back to SAX that was the starting point of this thread, the
question is probably to decide if SAX will be an "industry standard" or
an open specification written by developers for developers.

My 0,02 Euros.

Eric
> 
> - Dave
-- 
See you at XTech in San Diego.
             http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2001/view/e_spkr/790
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Eric van der Vlist       http://xmlfr.org            http://dyomedea.com
http://xsltunit.org      http://4xt.org           http://examplotron.org
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