Microsoft's responce to XML.com article.>

[Michael Champion]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Anne Phillips" <leeanne at leeanne.com>
To: "xml-dev" <xml-dev at ic.ac.uk>
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2000 1:36 AM
Subject: Re: Microsoft's responce to XML.com article.>


> We're all discussing this topic by means of a pervasive medium developed
> using the open RFC consensus process, RFC-822 et al., which has been
> adopted by every e-mail system manufacturer in the world. If they don't
> play by *our* rules, they can't sell their products.

That's an awfully good point, and in view of several responses I think I
overstated my last sentence about the W3C process being slow but more sure
to get widely implemented standards out.  BUT I'll stick to my main point:
truly open standards processes are better at filling voids than at
reconciling differences.  SAX 1.0 came about quickly and openly because it
simply addressed an un-met need.  DOM 1.0 came about slowly and painfully
because it had a goal of reconciling the differences in the Netscape -
Microsoft flavors of dynamic HTML *and* being XML-friendly in the process.
No amount of additional *outside* resources could have sped that process up
very much.

Would RFC 822 have had the effect it has if it had come along *after*
various big players had developed competing schemes for free exchange of
mail over IP?

Or, to be more relevant, could some openly-arrived at standard for XML
schemas have a chance of defining the rules that everyone must follow, in
light of all the conflicting proposals already out there?  I wish ... bu5t
I'd guess that we're gonna be stuck with whatever the W3C comes up with here
simply because their process is geared toward producing the greatest good
for the most vendors.


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