W3C (was Re: XSL Debate, Leventhal responds to Stephen Deach)

[Simon St.Laurent]

At 11:51 AM 6/11/99 -0400, you wrote:
>At 11:14 AM 6/11/99 -0400, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
>>In any case, it's all going to come back to one lucky individual - Tim
>>Berners-Lee -  and there isn't much the rest of us can do about it except
>>hope that he listens.
>
>Simon, you usually don't resort to hyperbole :)

If only it weren't such fun...

>TBL may be the director of the Consortium, but the membership votes on what
>will or won't be made into a Recommendation. If the membership gives it a
>resounding "YES!" the director, Tim or anyone else who may hold that spot
>later, isn't just going to play despot and say "NO!". 

Yes, but in the end, it's up to Tim.  Legal reasons, I understand, as he's
pretty well judgment-proof.  I also understand that he takes the job pretty
seriously.

Given the fairly dim view I have of W3C membership rules and process, Tim's
idealism (at least in public) is one of the few bright spots that gives me
reason to pay attention to a vendor consortium.  I disagree with plenty of
W3C decisions, and it may well all be Tim's fault, but it's good to know
that somebody out there - with power - actually seems to care about the
semantic web for reasons that have to do with more than stock valuations.

Otherwise, I'll stick to the IETF and informal (ala SAX2) efforts, thanks.
They ain't perfect either, but they're a lot more open about participation. 

Simon St.Laurent
XML: A Primer / Building XML Applications
Inside XML DTDs: Scientific and Technical (July)
Sharing Bandwidth / Cookies
http://www.simonstl.com

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