Re: Fwd: Re: [xml-dev] W3C Successes (RE: [xml-dev] W3C Culture and Aims )

On Fri, 2002-04-26 at 09:24, Mike Champion wrote:
> Absolutely!  But my contention is that the W3C is a different beast than it was four years ago, with >...higher aspirations to do "new science." Thus, the assumption 
> that the W3C process will continue to produce success stories is questionable.
> 
> Of course, we really should just shut up, get back to work, and revisit this question in four years <grin>

One easy way of dealing with that could be the use of version numbers. 
Specs that are "new science" could start at 0.1 rather than 1.0.

I'd certainly feel a lot more comfortable arguing with people about the
merits of W3C XML Schema 0.5 vs. RELAX NG 0.5 than dealing with people
who insist that 1.0 from the W3C (or OASIS) is some kind of magical
blessing.

Alternatively, maybe the world should look at existing version numbers
much like many people look at Microsoft - it's not considered stable
until 3.0 (or the third iteration) at least...

Maybe XML 1.0 qualifies as SGML 2.0 on that scale.

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com