Re: [xml-dev] It's too late to improve XML ... lessons learned?
I prefer to think of the standardisation process in terms that assume less evil intent.
I think Michael is saying, in effect, that standards have an Invisible Hand at work, whereby if each player pursues self-interest, there will be an aggregate optimality... Gosh. But Economic theorists from Adam Smith on have laboriously enumerated the market conditions under which the skittish and reticent Invisible Hand could possibly operate as advertised: ... so I don't see how standards-maintenance processes can be considered anything like perfect markets.
But as for "evil intent" Michael is right, that do I think to participate in Open Standards efforts without that fundamental stance of win-win is to operate in bad faith. (For example, adopting winner-takes-all tactics.) It is a fraud on the consumer. The question should never be "How do I get only what I want" but "How do we each get what we each want?"
