XSL Debate, Leventhal responds to Stephen Deach

[Jonathan Borden]

Miles Sabin wrote:
>
> Jonathan Borden wrote,
> > James Clark gave me the right to use his
> > implementation of XSL, IBM gave me the right to use
> > its implementation of XSL, Microsoft gave me the right
> > to use its implementation of XSL. (no intention to
> > leave out other implementations, but this makes the
> > point :-)
>
> Huh?
>
> In what way does criticism of XSL deprive you of those
> rights you've just listed?
>

	I never said it did. The above paragraph was used to defend my prior
statement that I have a right to use XSL if I choose. What I wish, is to use
XSL as a standard, and further, to define a common platform for web native
distributed computing (this specifically goes beyond a desire to browse
documents). To be practical about this we need to things to occur:

1) standards to be defined (e.g. role of W3C,IETF,ISO etc.)
2) standards to be adopted.

	To suggest, as Leventhal does, that work on XSL be suspended until 'major'
browser vendors have completed implementation of CSS2, is a suggestion that
fits his personal agenda, and the agenda of a subset of individuals and
corporations which are engaged in document browsing.

	I have nothing against CSS, to the contrary I use it every day, however it
alone does not help me with distributed computing tasks that I use XSL for,
even in its current pre-standard implementation. CSS is not in competition
with XSL in regards to WNDC, to the contrary, a reasonable argument would be
that DSSSL is already an ISO standard which can handle many of the tasks
that XSL is being designed to handle. This argument unfortunately is lost in
the current static regarding XSL vs. CSS, and though DSSSL does meet
requirement (1) above, it has not met requirement (2) for whatever reasons.

	My agenda is to speak loudly and hopefully clearly about the need for
browsers to support client side XSLT in order to enable browsers to be used
for web native distributed computing systems.

Jonathan Borden
http://jabr.ne.mediaone.net


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