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10/2/2002 11:31:54 AM, Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> wrote:
>
>So, if you're lucky, you get a relatively small working group with
>strong technical leadership doing something with a relatively narrow
>scope that no one particularly cares about before it's finished.
>
>If you're not lucky, you get a large working group containing lots of
>people with competing agendas, no single clear technical vision,
>working in an area that lots of people assert is desperately
>important.
>
>If you know how to solve these problems, I see the Nobel Price for
>Peace in your future.
Yup. I'll repost my favorite URL on this subject:
James Gosling's tongue-in-cheek mathematical treatment
of the problem (written about 12 years ago!)
http://java.sun.com/people/jag/StandardsPhases/
"For a standard to be usefully formed, the technology
needs to be understood: technological interest needs
to be waning. But if political interest in a standard
becomes too large, the various parties have too much
at stake in their own vested interest to be flexible
enough to accommodate the unified view that a standard requires."
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