Microsoft's responce to XML.com article

[Simon St.Laurent]

At 05:18 PM 1/16/00 -0800, Robert La Quey wrote:
>At 01:42 PM 1/15/00 -0800, Tim Bray wrote:
>>Mea culpa, more than anyone else.  But it's a symptom of the W3C's 
>>#1 problem, lack of resources.  I've been busy helping get XLink done.
>>CMSMCQ's been busy helping get schema done.  JeanPa's been busy getting
>>MS Office to do something sensible with XML, a little bird tells me.  It
>>was tough to lay any of these tasks aside to put in the errata work.
>
>Well, open up the game and you will get a lot more resources.  Not 
>money, but the scarce resource, brains and imagination. 

It takes a big leap of imagination, not to mention willingness to give up
the pretense of control over a standards process.

I don't see the W3C or its corporate members - heck, even many of its
academic members - having that kind of flexibility or interest in moving to
an open process.  An open process would make different kinds of resources
available, but the W3C and the defenders of its process don't seem to value
those resources.

I'd love to see an opening, and I'd be much happier about implementing
projects like XLink, but I've been waiting a while and seen only a few tiny
cracks in the wall.  Looking back, those cracks seem to have been the
results of insiders bringing discussion outside the walls to suit a
particular purpose, not the results of outsiders asking the W3C to open up.

And no, I don't have any interest in participating as an invited expert in
a closed process, so this isn't a plea for that kind of access.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
Building XML Applications
Inside XML DTDs: Scientific and Technical
Cookies / Sharing Bandwidth
http://www.simonstl.com

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