IFF the purpose of a standard is to enable information interchange
within some declared set of cases, then its goal should be to permit the
finger of blame to be pointed whenever accurate information interchange
fails to occur. When the finger of blame cannot be pointed, maintenance
is required.
When maintenance is required but prevented, well, ... it's like the
situation in which the U.S. government currently finds itself. It
bothers me. Laws, like standards, are exploitable piles of hacks. When
laws fail to serve the people's interests, they require maintenance.
The trick is to treat the maintenance of a law as more important -- and
more urgent -- than the side-effects of casting off its current
accumulation of exploits. Best to keep the accumulation as light as
possible, because it soon gets away from you, and the accumulated
exploits overshadow the original purpose of the law itself.
