Re: [xml-dev] RE: Encoding charset of HTTP Basic Authentication

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

On 02/02/2012 22:16, cbullard@hiwaay.net wrote:
> Things changed because the market changed.  In the 1980s the markets 
> for software in Europe were to put it mildly, soft in comparison to 
> the domestic markets.
I assume domestic should be read as "American" here?

And I'm not sure what you mean by "soft". Less competitive? Less 
profitable? Smaller? Certainly in many areas of software, it's very hard 
to penetrate overseas markets because you need such a deep knowledge of 
local requirements, and that's true whether you're exporting from the US 
to Europe or vice versa. (Just look at the form I'm trying to complete 
for a current US government procurement, which demands to know stuff 
about my policy on employing disabled Vietnam-war veterans, and whether 
the University that I attended was "historically black". Some of the 
questions are so invasive I'm not allowed to answer them under UK 
privacy law).
>
>
> It took the consolidation of a lot of different companies around 
> Microsoft products to change the vertical stacks into horizontal ones.
Actually, in Europe it was Unix that caused that change, not Microsoft. 
The trend (X/Open in particular) was in full swing in the early 1980s, 
long before Microsoft was a force to be reckoned with. The rise of the 
independent database companies (Oracle, Ingres, Informix) had nothing to 
do with Microsoft.
>   No one plays what's mine is mine and what's your's is mine as well 
> as Apple plays it and others such as Amazon and Facebook are 
> shuttering the web blinds to plays from companies that rely on 
> openness such as Google even as some free ride on Google openness and 
> sharing in technologies such as Android.
>
Yes, the ebb and flow between open and closed is fascinating to watch; 
depressing at times, but certainly interesting. Particularly depressing 
is that the regulators seem to be about 10 years behind, still fighting 
the browser wars. The way they are allowing Apple and Amazon to tie 
content to hardware amazes me: I thought that had all been made illegal 
20 years ago.

Not that I find the Google business model - pay for everything through 
advertising, and collect as much private data as you can in order to 
target the advertising - particularly appealing either.

Michael Kay
Saxonica