XML's original goals

[Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org>]

On 15 April 2012 20:56, Liam R E Quin <liam@w3.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 2012-04-13 at 12:59 +0000, Rushforth, Peter wrote:
>> [...]
>
>> As I understand it, mastery of the web was a goal of
>> XML, so I'm just dreaming a little.
>
> It was not a goal of XML.
>
> The primary goal of XML was getting existing SGML documents and
> work-flows onto the Web. The work was originally called Web SGML.

Talking of origins and goals (and btw c.f.
http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml11-20040204/#sec-origin-goals )

...wouldn't it be nice if W3C Member-only archives from the original
XML days could be opened up?

Maybe after 100 years? 50? 20?

Perhaps the only way to do this 'by the book' in terms of expectations
of the original WG participants, would be for W3C to all declare
planet Earth a W3C Member and all it's residents as acting
representatives of that Member. But I'm sure that other less dramatic
mechanisms could be explored, so long as they were respectful of the
constraints and intentions of the original groups (including those who
are no longer with us). Perhaps 15 years is a reasonable period? Later
work isn't so troubled by this as W3C now does much more in public,
but the early XML (and also RDF) design discussions are frustratingly
hard to cite or share.

I ask as I've been talking with Max (cc:'d) lately about proposing a
W3C Community Group (see http://www.w3.org/community/ ) on Web
History, and I've been wondering whether working up such a proposal
(for eventual public release of certain W3C Member-only archives)
would be a feasible and useful work item. Would anyone be interested
in exploring this and working through the details?

cheers,

Dan