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No free lunch, here, Dare. We can split hairs
on the meaning as much as we like, but I equate
it with guaranteed process for this discussion.
I'm well aware of the problems Bob points out
in his article. Have been since before the
XML oddity began. Pointed them out. Ambitions ruled
anyway. Not a new thing for the mammals.
Atom isn't a standard. Atom is one part of a
community hijacking work done by another part
and making claims. That is exactly why one
doesn't do business like that if one is claiming
to be 'standardizing'. I agree with the use
of the term 'specification' and over the years
here, have made that point repeatedly. The blogging
world is still stuck in the last century playing
the games that made a hash of meaningful standards
work. Good product? Yes. Bad documents? Yes.
Is Flash 'a standard'. Heck no. It is a ubiquitously
used technology. That's cool. Like machinima,
there is no substitute for Drag Drop and Go when
selling product. Microsoft gets big points for
understanding that "No Programming Required" is
a plus to any production shop.
What do customers consider standard? Well, now
that is precisely the problem, isn't it? And
that problem is only going to be solved when
we can agree on a solution and explain it to
them so that they have a conformance test for
what we tell them. Microsoft is actually getting
a lot smarter about this. They tell one that
the XML Schemas for Office 2003 work for their
products and are licensed. No pretense is made
that these are standards; they are application
vocabularies. My hat is off to you for that.
We have two rules here: promise-control and
only bid what you can demo. It has made us
profitable and we sleep better.
Truth is a great stress-reliever.
len
From: Dare Obasanjo [mailto:dareo@microsoft.com]
It seems like everyone who misuses the word "standard" you are focused on
the process. If you have a specification with conformance tests that was
designed by committee on an open mailing list that could be subscribed to by
anyone with an email address then rubberstamped with
W3C/IETF/ANSI/ISO/whatever with royalty free implementation as sugar on top
and...no one implements it.
Then is it a standard?
If I have a technology that has a single vendor but is universally
accessible from multiple devices and platforms (e.g. Flash) is it a
standard?
Standard means whatever you want it to mean. Anyone can always complain
about the process [Sam Ruby created a wiki for ATOM discussions and people
complained it was too open, he started a mailing list and then people
complained about backchannels] so pointing out your favorite processes
doesn't guarantee that it is 'standard'. As the author of the original
article wrote
"I can say that my process is completely open and anyone in the world can
participate. But let's schedule my meetings every quarter and once in Tokyo
and once in Berlin and once in Vienna and once in Vancouver and once in
Washington. Effectively only the biggest players in the world can play."
Will customers consider something a standard if no one can implement the
spec even if it has gone through all the right processes? Do you think the
average developer thinks SQL, C++ or W3C XML Schema are standard in any
meaningful sense of the word besides 'spec produced by some committee' ?
Personally I use the word 'specification'. That's the only accurate
description I've come across of what most people tend to claim are
'standards'.
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