Re: [xml-dev] XML spec and XSD

[Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@ibiblio.org>]

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Liam Quin <liam@w3.org> wrote:

> But the fairy dust has scattered, the hype has moved on, and few
> organizations today would want to pay money to participate in
> XML 2.0 work, I fear, even if we could get consensus on what such
> a beast should look like.

Fuck consensus. Fuck organizations that pay to play.

The only way XML 2.0 could ever work is is if a few smart, like-minded
individuals get together and build something useful. If it's a
noticeable improvement on existing technology that offers significant
practical benefits to real customers (as opposed to  the completely
theoretical benefits of XML 1.1) the big companies can play catch up
later, just like they did with JSON; just like they did with XML 1.0.
Just like they're doing now with HTML 5.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can
change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." --
Margaret Mead

That said, I'm not sure we could make XML 2.0 better enough to justify
the cost of switching. XML 1.0 is still pretty damn good. 5% better
wouldn't do it. It really needs to be infinitely better: i.e. move
some projects that are  practically impossible today into the realm of
the plausible. After 12 years, and listening to a lot of good ideas
from multiple folks, I think I know how to make XML 50% better, maybe
even 100% better; but I'm not sure I know how to make it infinitely
better. But one of these days someone will figure out how to. I
suspect it won't be the W3C that does though.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold
elharo@ibiblio.org