RE: [xml-dev] What is a rational user to do? (was RE: [xml-dev] xsd validation)

["Paul Brown" <prb@fivesight.com>]

> From: Mike Champion [mailto:mc@xegesis.org]
> What is a poor bureaucrat (corporate, governmental, or otherwise)
> supposed to do?  You get the GAO saying that XML should
> not be widely deployed until (IMHO insuperable) human
> problems of information standardization are solved. 

This is circular in the sense that it says that XML shouldn't be used as the basis for data interchange agreements between people until the problem of data interchange between people is solved in a generic way.

"Technology does not solve business problems."  Comparing security and trust -- to shift the context of the discussion and hopefully isolate the real problem as not being with XML -- could be instructive in this circumstance.  Security (in the form of PKI, etc.) does not create a trust relationship between two parties, but the two parties may craft a business understanding and formal agreement that a certain security implementation is acceptable as the basis of communications.

The question of local versus global standards is one of business requirements and business arrangements.  Problems for participants occur when communities overlap (with different business requirements) -- not having a pat solution for XML dialects is no different than not having a pat solution for generic semantic differences.  (Is a screw a screw?  What about thread pitch?  How many in a "box"?)

	-- Paul