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There
are always multiple forces at work in adoption of specifications. The
timing
of releases of technical work is one. XForms was predated by different
attempts at a modular GUI system, some of which predate XML
itself. It
is
clearly unwise to hold back the implementors until the W3C shows an
active
interest in some area. XDocs may fall into that area, work that was
in
progress before XForms and which continued in parallel.
A
bigger issue that has become increasingly disturbing is the attempts
of
other policy groups to obstruct innovation through normative support
of
particular organizations. While these may be well-intentioned, they
are
bad policy. Reviewing the Draft Federal XML Developer's Guide
from
the US Federal CIO Council XML Working Group, I found misguided
rationale requiring program managers to support W3C specifications even
if
better specifications can be found. The terms of guidance, for
example,
precludes the use of RELAX NG given XML Schemas. Basically,
if the
W3C
shows an interest in an area of technology, a program manager would
have
to wait for it to be fielded. This document clearly is bad
policy.
We
cannot innovate based on policy that requires all competitors to
run
only as fast as the slowest runner.
len
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