RE: [xml-dev] "Open XML" et al... Blech... Re: [xml-dev] Micros oft bu

["Len Bullard" <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

I agree with that completely, Rick.   It gets more difficult to balance the
different interests, but the common goal is completely clear.

Still, note that office documents aren't the complete solution and never
have been, thus markup (originally for ensuring precisely this), and other
pieces.  I think that neither ODF nor OOXML represent the future or the
past.  They are transitions to something more like what Tim Bray is
describing, but to get to that, we do this first completely and fairly.
Injuring the process with haste or FUD hurts us all.

Sensible leadership will emerge.  Always has.  We noodle here for ideas and
those take root, someone carries it forward, everyone contributes, it works
out.  That is how XML was achieved.  These are different circumstances, but
a lot of lessons have been learned.  We need to clear out the FUD and ask
ourselves not 'what happens now', but as Tim points out, what do we want?  

len


From: Rick Marshall [mailto:rjm@zenucom.com] 
 
Hi Len

I think you misunderstood. I'm not concerned with the legals around 
patents etc. That's working it's way - slowly - to a sensible position: 
software patents are mostly nonsense.

I'm concerned with the ordinary legal process that has to cope with eg 
an organisation that has been ignoring employee safety and all the 
documentation that may or may not prove culpability is in ODF or OOXML 
(or worse old word formats). People may die, go to gaol, etc and it is 
critical that prosecution and defense can confidently state that a 
document supports or doesn't support a case.

The archivists and historians will have similar problems. I don't know 
what you do in the USA, but here in Australia government cabinet papers 
are released to the public after 30 years, usually with very little or 
no censorship - if it's an electronic document instead of paper...

So MS may or may not get richer. I don't really care. But as a community 
I think it is critical that these standards are done properly.

Regards
Rick

Len Bullard wrote:
> As Michael Kay said, it started in Germany.   I don't think it a bad idea
to
> have open formats.  I think it a bad idea when open source and open
formats
> become a legal weapon or even just a means to brand a company then use
that
> branding in the face of competition or legal obstacles to competition.
One
> wishes the software industry would recognize of its own volition the
> complete absurdity of software patents and simply stop asking for them.
> That's a pipe dream, yes, but with the advent of legal reforms favoring
> 'first to file', I believe what has happened to HumanML will happen to
many
> open list evolved technologies.   So I ask you, Rick, what happens when
the
> open conversations have to stop because of all of the VCs and technical
> vampires who hang out on these lists contributing nothing but waiting for
> the opportunity to be 'first to file'?
>
> It's really going to suck.
>
> On the other hand, it seems some time ago I wrote a note forward to myself
> and published it.  I found it among my HumanML notes.   So you won't think
> I'm too cynical, I copied it below.
>
> Good people do the right things.  The rest, well, they aren't magical
> anyway. :-)
>
> Len
>
> *****************************************
>
> On The Power of Myth
>
> Perhaps we should better understand magic.  Attention is magic. 
>
> Where a technology, an initiative, or even a simple email brings attention
> to a topic, enables that topic to be shared, understood, and become part
of
> the competency of some individual or group, that is magic.
>
> Efforts such as HumanML are easy targets for cynicism and critique. They
> defy the neo-Gothic, the easy pejorative, the all too common laziness of
> so-called serious intellectual thought.  Where some step up to the
challenge
> of making a difference, they enable hope.   To clarify the question, to
> enable the individual or the group to share a belief, an emotion, or even
a
> simple thrill, this enables humanity. 
>
> We do not create humanity; we humanize.
>
> This magic is not reserved to the political process, or the elite who
become
> a core community then shut themselves off from the commons, who consider
> every moment of their elite attention so precious that they soon
experience
> only the messages from their self-selected peers, that magic is available
to
> any person that trades attention for learning about others.
>
> Technology is not magic.  The effort to create the technology is magic.
> The artifacts of the HumanML initiative are not magical spells, but the
> attitudes and emotions of the individuals who will dedicate attention to
> creating the languages are magic.  It is the magic of hope, the
willingness
> to believe and persevere in the the face of the cynical, the pejorative
and
> the emotionally impoverished or frightened that transforms the lot for
some
> large or limited number of individuals.
>
> In the end, all magic is attention and all attention is the power of the
> individual.  Whether an effort fails to achieve its goals or is the
starting
> point for other efforts that achieve these goals, the chain of human
> initiative is linked by the sustaining belief that the goals are worthy of
> the attention freely given.  That belief, that willingness, and that
> acceptance of the cost of effort, these are the magical powers of
> individuals whose hope that their effort can bring that hope to others,
that
> the chain of human achievement does create a better world, that simple
hope,
> that willingness, that acceptance of the power of marvelous faith is
magic.
>
> XML is magic because we made it.  What we make of it, where that brings
> hope, is a greater magic and we are magicians.
>
> len
>
>
>
>