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So nice to have a vacation.
James' remark seems more ill-mannered than technical or
was a fawlty towers attempt at humor, but
let that go. ISO owns SGML and nothing
said here or there changes that. SGML is an international
standard and still a working beast; there is no call
to marginalize or "stab". XML and SGML may go separate
ways, but that doesn't serve any interest well. It is
time for ISO 8879 to be updated to reflect new requirements
as any standard must. I don't know if SGML depends on
XML to survive, but SGML must be kept current to be relevant
regardless of provenance.
The ISO/W3C alliance on markup is useful.
Every time the XML community uses SGML and ISO as a
whipping boy for its frustrations, the privatization of XML
and the markup technologies by the commercial interests
represented by the W3C increases. We complain about embrace and
extend but don't notice that often we are making that
possible with ill-considered tactics.
We are not well served by a knife fight. We have to
look ahead and understand that an organization that
today looks invincible can very quickly become irrelevant.
The XML leaders take public positions which any
serious business analyst knows are untenable (patents,
small vs large companies, etc) with predictable results.
So take these for what they are: politics of the moment.
As for the rest of the speech, we should consider
those remarks separately. XML is now on a path some
will welcome and others will see as self-limiting.
Preserve options. I agree that the foundations should
be made solid and with most of the rest.
Happy New Year to all! Praying for rain in Sydney...
len
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