Rick Jelliffe:
> XML was not a planting exercise, but a pruning exercise.
Michael Key:
> XML (like so many technologies) was successful because it was done
quickly, and that taking longer to do it better would probably have
ensured an early death.
Private interests may find it politically useful to characterize
demodularization as "pruning", but in engineering terms, it's still
demodularization, and it's not necessarily in the public interest.
A more basic question is: Would it be good if information interchange
standards were designed publicly, for world economic performance? Or
not? Is the question academic? Or is it simply practical? It depends
one's perspective. (One's perspective being subject to change!)
For example, consider a topic that is perhaps less fraught than XML
Namespaces, at least within the XML community. Was the 7-layer OSI
model in the public interest, or not? Would we be better off today if
private interests had adopted it, or had been required to adopt it? If,
for whatever reasons, private interests had adopted OSI, would we now
enjoy more options in world communications, and a larger arena more
suitable both for innovation *and* regulation?
More generally (and with thanks to Eric Raymond), does the bazaar really
serve its own interests by neglecting its cathedral? Personally, I think
not.
Steve Newcomb
