RE: [xml-dev] Expertise and Innovation - was Re: [xml-dev] Non-Borg servers can authenticate Borg clients (Was Re: [xml-dev] Re: Cookies at XML Europe 2004 -- Call for Participation)

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

That is important.  Someone wrote earlier about "avoiding being a member of
a 
community.  That's wrong.  Being a member of a market is altogether
different. 
Bob isn't the only one who had management that looked back and asked, "And
pray 
tell, who will buy this?"  That question was common across the market.
STimbl 
didn't have a market either.  He had a network and he had volunteers ready
to 
work.  The Mosaic browser was a pitiful thing but it worked across the
network 
of networks that is the Internet (and that is not trivial) and no one had to

cost-justify it.  To the users who had no familiarity with what a modern 
hypermedia system was capable of, it looked obvious.  It was obvious.

Then the retrofitting of features and history began.  Why weren't other 
browsers created that were better?  Some were.  They were SGML browsers 
yet the SGMLIsEvil meme was loud in the Internet amplifier.  Anyone 
who ever did a round with the HTMLNutcases understood that between the 
priests, the assassins, and the desperate Canadian SGML companies, 
it would be a long time before the better systems came back.

But when they did, the Americans would own their patents. :-)

len


From: Bob Wyman [mailto:bob@wyman.us]

The big problem I had in trying to bring my "Memex" system to market was
that there was *no*
market to sell into.