My experience of standards processes is not dissimilar to trying to agree
things on this mailing list! The only real difference is that they have to
come up with a deliverable. The "conspiracy" is more that each participant
tries to get in their particular wish, and there's a lot of "I'll support
your proposal if you support mine." I'm not even convinced that most
standards bodies are populated by the brightest people! Why would you send
your smartest person to help other people! I'm sure in some cases it's the
one you want an excuse to get out the office! And they are told to get X in
the standard and that's what they are appraised by. Not by preventing some
other person's dumb idea. The result is that there are often too many
cooks. It's surprising anything sensible comes out of these bodies and when
it does it's usually as a result of a particularly gifted chair.
Pete Cordell
Codalogic Ltd
C++ tools for C++ programmers, http://codalogic.com
Read & write XML in C++, http://www.xml2cpp.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Kay" <>
To: "Michael Kay" <>
Cc: "Steve Newcomb" <>; "Michael Sokolov"
<>; <>
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2013 10:51 PM
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Standards and Antitrust (was: seduced by markup)
And I might add, as anecdotal evidence, that the "collusion in secret
sessions" by Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, Oracle, SoftQuad, Arbortext and others
to create XSLT 1.0 was what enabled Saxonica to enter the market and compete
with them, rather successfully. How is that "restraint of trade"?
Michael Kay
Saxonica
Steve Newcomb wrote:
>>
>> (As to the latter point, I have never understood why the W3C was allowed
>> to escape prosecution under the Sherman Antitrust Act. I know the
>> theory: that TimBL has absolute authority, and therefore W3C is
>> technically not a conspiracy in restraint of trade. But that doesn't
>> change the fact that it is indeed a conspiracy that has allowed multiple
>> market leaders to collude in secret sessions with the net result of
>> restraining trade, once TimBL says "OK".)
>>
>
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