RE: [xml-dev] Which Will Be Released First, the W3C's XQuery Spec or Longhorn?

["Michael Rys" <mrys@microsoft.com>]

> (c) I don't think there is any evidence that any vendors are
deliberately
> trying to slow the process down. But I think there might be one or two
who
> are probably regretting submitting quite so many comments, given the
> delays this has caused. Microsoft have probably submitted more
comments
> than anyone else.

[Michael Rys] Actually, I think that the amount of comments was not only
our fault. And I still believe that having a standard proposal reviewed
in depth and fix problems (or cut/postpone) features is better than
having 100 errata shortly after shipping the standard.

Best regards
Michael

PS: You should see the numbers of review comments on a SQL standard
draft....
 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Don Demsak [mailto:donxml@gmail.com]
> > Sent: 14 October 2004 14:47
> > To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> > Subject: [xml-dev] Which Will Be Released First, the W3C's
> > XQuery Spec or Longhorn?
> >
> > The following is from my blog entry:
> > http://donxml.com/allthingstechie/archive/2004/10/13/1421.aspx
> >
> > Microsoft has been taking in on the chin recently for the delays in
> > releasing Longhorn (including from yours truly), but I'd like to
point
> > out another 800lb gorilla that should be taken to task for taking
too
> > long to release a product, the W3C.  Some people love to bash
> > Microsoft, and typically the same folks look the other way when the
> > W3C does something similar.  In case you haven't heard, Dare
announced
> > that XQuery will not be a part of the .Net 2.0 beta 2 release (and
the
> > final release).  The reason, the estimated time that the XQuery spec
> > will become a recommendation isn't until late 2005, which is after
> > .Net 2.0 will be released.  Microsoft got burned badly when they
> > released code based on working drafts of XSL back in IE 5.0, and
they
> > can't let that happen again.  In case you don't remember, XSL looked
> > like it was ready to go, and very late in the game the W3C members
> > decided to rewrite the spec and split it into two (XSLT and XSL-FO).
> > I spent years on the VBXML XSLT discussion group trying to explain
to
> > developers that there were 2 versions of XSL out there, and it was
> > very confusing for the majority of developers.
> >
> > So, Microsoft has decided to be cautious and limit their exposure on
> > XQuery and have limited support within SQL Server 2005.  I don't
blame
> > them on this.  The XQuery spec has been an official W3C Working
Draft
> > since February 2001 and is still a Working Draft (over 3 years
later).
> >  It still has to go thru the complete process (Working Draft to
> > Candidate Recommendation to Proposed Recommendation and finally W3C
> > Recommendation).  I don't think it would be beyond some of the
> > business on the committee to purposely slow down the recommendation
> > process in order to give their companies time to catch up to level
of
> > support Microsoft has for XQuery.  So which one do you think will be
> > released first Longhorn or the W3C's XQuery spec?
> >
> > One of my major complaints with the W3C (and other standards
> > organizations) is that they just produce standards, not
> > implementations of the standards.  I understand that software
> > companies have a vested interest in releasing products according to
a
> > specification, but without having a publicly accessible
implementation
> > of the spec to work with during the draft process it makes it very
> > difficult to create test cases.  The writers of the spec have to
> > resort to thought exercises to test their ideas.  My idea is to
marry
> > a standards organization with an open source community (think of
> > merging the W3C and SourceForge), but put a hard division between
the
> > two groups.  In order to prevent intellectual property leakage from
> > the businesses on the standards org side to the open source side,
> > individuals from one side can not work on the other (for a given
> > spec).  This way there is a living example for the standards group
to
> > work the bugs out of (before it becomes a recommendation), and
should
> > streamline the specification process.  I know licensing can become a
> > hairy issue here, so that is why I keep the 2 sides divided.  A
> > company on the standards committee does not risk exposing its IP to
> > the open source implementation, and the reverse should be true too.
> > To make this work, the open source project leaders would need to
have
> > very good access to the working draft committee.  In a perfect
world,
> > there would be at least 2 open source implementations (.Net and
Java),
> > and even the code based on rejected implementations would be
available
> > for all (which is something some of the MS MVPs in XML have been
> > asking of MS for libraries that were abandoned).
> >
> >
> > Don Demsak
> >
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