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Bullard, Claude L (Len) <clbullar@ingr.com> writes:
> And the response to that must be a tightening of our
> language by formally attaching some semantics. This
> isn't rocket science and certainly different organizations
> can do better or worse jobs at it, but unless some
> discipline and formal definitions are used, the FUDdieDuddies win.
>
> IP keiretsu may not be better except in this respect:
> given some technical domain, one knows who to trust,
> and given some participation agreement, why. Once
> done, then the issue of what is and isn't a standard
> is a matter of picking a documentation process group.
> We don't need ISO to protect us from each other; we
> need them to manage the documentation processes for
> work we create after signing agreements that protect
> us from each other.
>
> Then when some private company announces they are
> going to ECMA to fast track to ISO, they are easy
> to spot. I've no problems working with proprietary
> XML languages because I have to. I've big problems
> with those being called standards without due process.
>
I think I'd have to agree with Robin. A (perhaps non-standard)
dictionary look-up of "standard" yields many meanings two of which seem
relevant:
- An acknowledged measure of comparison for quantitative or qualitative
value; a criterion
- Something, such as a practice or a product, that is widely recognized
or employed, especially because of its excellence
I personally don't expect the word standard as applied to specifications
to give it much more weight than using the term specification by itself.
Knowing who authors and/or endorses a spec. is sometimes useful.
However, I don't expect any particular heritage or endorsement for any
particular spec. to give it any special staying power, universality or
commercial viability.
> len
>
>
> From: Robin Cover [mailto:robin@isogen.com]
>
> I don't see any solution to the problem of authority WRT what
> is (in)appropriate for designation as a "standard" since
> opinions vary widely. I can't imagine a world court
> promulgating and enforcing a rule that "only such-and-such
> things may be called 'standards'; language academies largely
> fail in such efforts, and so would a global edict. We have
> the anomaly of XML *not* being called a standard by its
> SDO/SSO, while it clearly has the force of a
> standard; other specs are called "standards" by their
> respective SDO/SSO -- just because the creating body said so.
> At one time, OASIS declared that it did not create
> standards, now we have CDs being voted by the membership to
> become an "OASIS Standard." And so forth, for hundreds of
> similar SDO/SSO orgs, and the meta-definitions are not agreed upon.
>
> Robin Cover
> (speaking for no corporate entity)
>
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