RE: Collected Works of SAX

[Leigh Dodds <ldodds@ingenta.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Brownell [mailto:david-b@pacbell.net]
> Sent: 20 July 2001 19:21
> To: Leigh Dodds; xml-dev
> Cc: David Megginson
> Subject: Re: Collected Works of SAX

[...]

> That didn't exactly get resolved the last time it came up;
> there was a stall around the time Oasis got mentioned,
> as I seem to recall. There's an issue that Len has been
> mentioning lately:  privatizing public resources.  I'm not
> keen on giving SAX to any consortium, myself.

I think that initially SAX just needs an official maintainer,
a new 'benevolent dictator' - I think this would address immediate
concerns about stability after David stepping down.

Finding an official home, whether it be OASIS, or just a SourceForge
project and an open mailing list can follow on from that.
Judging by the previous discussions [1,2], and the arguments being
made now elsewhere in this thread, this isn't going to be
resolved easily; everyone seems to have a preferred group, or
prefer none of them!

I also suspect that if David says 'its going to X' then a lot of folks would
be happy with his decision.

Wherever SAX ends up, it'll need a maintainer, even if they are
just the head of a larger working group. So personally I think
we should start thinking about that.

> As for core:  I plan to put a few simple proposals
> together, crossposed to the relevant SourceForge
> lists and (of course :) xml-dev, much like David
> Megginson did originally.  If they fly, they can go
> into the sourceforge project.

Excellent!

> As for layers on top, I confess that initially I had
> thought of just a web page to collect links.  (Hence
> "collected works". :)  Heck, maybe a Wiki would
> be a good thing to have around in any case!  We
> don't know all that's available right now, so it's
> hard to know what parts are really missing.

Thats a good point I'm sure there's a lot there, ranging from
obvious ones like Davids XML Writer, to other bits of code
hidden in various open source project.

I'm willing to pull together a list of links if people want to email them
to myself or the list.

This thread has changed tack somewhat, and has focussing
on the bigger issue of SAXs home and future. While this
is needed, we shouldn't let the opportunity for compiling
a collected works, etc slip by while the interest is there.

> p.s. Perhaps a SAX2 BOF at the Open Source
>     conference next week in San Diego would be
>     a good place to discuss some of this?  :)

That would be great - so long as someone writes up some
notes for those of us who can't make it! :)

Cheers,

L.

[1]. http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/02/16/deviant/index.html
[2]. http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/10/04/sax/index.html