Re: [semantic-web] <none>

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:02:49 -0700, John Milton <swdemon1981@yahoo.com>  
wrote:

> Then why did the W3.org spend tens of millions and 11 years (since they  
> got the completely obvious work from the plagiarizers at Netscape in  
> 1997... who got from the plagiarizer Guha at Apple)  do it all  
> again???????

Technology is both an act of invention and an act of refinement.  XML has  
never hidden itself as a refinement of SGML, nor have its "inventors" ever  
tried to claim it was original in its foundation.  In fact many of those  
involved with the creation of the XML specification had been directly  
involved with SGML in one capacity or another.

The reason for spending tens of millions of dollars to first refine SGML  
into XML to then derive new technologies from that refinement is simple:  
It was seen as a necessary step to enable a new generation of applications  
being developed for the Internet.  It's the same reason there is now talk  
of XML 2.0**.  The same group of folks who derived XML from SGML seem to  
now be coming to the conclusion that it may very well be time for another  
refinement.  Whether or not that happens is completely unknown, but if it  
does you can be absolute positive that the history books will specify that  
XML 2.0 is a refinement of XML 1.0 (there's a 1.1 in there as well, but  
that was largely ignored, and 1.0 refined instead and the spec updated  
accordingly instead) which is a refinement of SGML which is the  
standardized version of GML which was created by Charles Goldfarb, Edward  
Mosher and Raymond Lorie in the 1960's.

Much like RDF, or XSLT, or RSS, or Atom, or XUL, or XAML, or etc. etc.  
etc. if you want to use XML to create a new language or data format and  
then claim you invented that language or data format then by all means, do  
just that.  But just because I might claim I invented the phrase "Punk  
A$$ Hacker With An Attitude"*** doesn't mean I can then lay claim to  
inventing both the words and the letters that this phrase is made up with,  
which in many ways is exactly what these silly claims of "invention" are  
all about.

"We invented 2, so therefore we own 1 + 1, and therefore we own 1 as  
well." != true just because someone at the patent office decided that 2  
was worthy of a patent.

** http://norman.walsh.name/2008/02/20/xml20
*** Which I'm not doing, BTW...  Just use it sometimes as a way to  
describe my personality to people.

-- 
/M:D

M. David Peterson
Co-Founder & Chief Architect, 3rd&Urban, LLC
Email: m.david@3rdandUrban.com | m.david@amp.fm
Mobile: (206) 418-9027
http://3rdandUrban.com | http://amp.fm |  
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2354

Received on Friday, 22 February 2008 23:30:01 UTC