RE: [xml-dev] XML-DEV list

[Ben Trafford <ben@prodigal.ca>]

At 10:29 PM 9/27/2006, Len Bullard wrote:
>My problem with that description is how many web programmers or designers
>are willing to suggest or document solutions without doing the research into
>the topic to discover what solutions have been tried and what the results
>were.  Two very serious problems emerge out of that:  claiming credit where
>there is prior art making the IP situation difficult for everyone, and
>claims that lead to false eigen-index locking (the Google/Wikipedia effect).

         From what I've seen, there's arguably prior art on virtually 
any idea you put forth, these days. I have very little fears on that 
front -- trying to fight a patent against an open linking standard 
would be awfully rough going for whomever tried it. Moreover, nothing 
I'm doing is really new -- it's more of a remix of existing ideas, 
with a bit of glue. Also, everything I've taken from comes from open standards.

         As for people willing to put forward solutions without the 
research -- well. I'm of two minds on that one. On one hand, I agree 
that people need to be relatively rigorous in their research (which 
is another reason this is taking me awhile to finish -- there's a lot 
of history in hyperlinks). The other part of me applauds the web 
programmers and designers for at least -trying-, where so many others 
are just content to bitch and moan, without actually doing anything.

         I'm with Teddy Roosevelt on this one: "It is not the critic 
who counts...The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the 
arena." I've got a lot more respect for people who try to address a 
problem, even if their solution is wrong, or ill-researched, or 
naive, than people who just sit back and complain.

>I expect to see 42 pages with the last two being citations of work both in
>URIs and bibliographic.

         Those resources will certainly be present, Len. They were in 
place long before you brought them up. But thanks for the reminder. I 
have actually been doing this awhile, you know?

         :^)

--->Ben