W3C and 'small vendors'.

[Daniel Veillard]

> "Hey! Just give me 5-10  teams, like renderx.com 
> who are frustrated with W3C - constantly rejecting 
> them - and we'l invent the lXML ( for free, like Linux 
> was created). lXML will *not* conform to W3C 
> specs but will *work*right*now*".

  Not to be annoying, but I think there is a myth here.

If you think that rolling your own standard is in anyway similar to
the Linux approach (and hence expecting the wide acceptance it got)
you're IMHO really wrong.
  Linux was successful partly because it did stick to the POSIX standard
far better than most commercial OSes. I guess there is only one 
exception where Linus decided to change the behaviour from the spec
because, well it was clearly broken !

  I still think that the Linux project (which I have followed quite
closely since Spring 92) is a reimplementation effort of something
which is/was a very well known problem. 
  On the other hand XML while building on quite some expertise coming
from SGML, HTML and related standards is rather in a definition phase,
the problem is rather creating the standard than implementing it.
We are working at a semantic and syntactic level, not purely
implementation.

  Another myth is that adding code to the linux kernel can be done
by anybody, I can guarantee you that Linus is at least as selective
in deciding who he trust for taking the responsability of subparts
of the kernel code than W3C groups in selecting invited experts !
Probably far more selective actually... There is areas of the kernel
code that nearly nobody else will be able to touch.

  And honnestly this very tight control is probably the best reason
why the project did stay successful. The more the area is near the kernel
or the core, the harder it is to get changes. I guess it simply
makes sense.

  Anyway I wouldn't try to draw too much parallel between W3C process
and Linux developement one, they are pertaining to rather different level,

  Yours,

Daniel

-- 
Daniel.Veillard at w3.org | W3C, INRIA Rhone-Alpes  | Today's Bookmarks :
Tel : +33 476 615 257  | 655, avenue de l'Europe | Linux, WWW, rpmfind,
Fax : +33 476 615 207  | 38330 Montbonnot FRANCE | rpm2html, XML,
http://www.w3.org/People/W3Cpeople.html#Veillard | badminton, and Kaffe.

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