RE: Standards development (was HTML forms)

In my experience, the proper way to develop standards is to begin with a private
implementation. Only with practical experience can sufficient understanding be achieved to
enable the writing of a good standard. Nearly all prevalent standards have followed this
course, including HTML. An example of writing the standard first is OSI.

Jony

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-html-request@w3.org [mailto:www-html-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of
> Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu
> Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 11:47 PM
> To: James P. Salsman
> Cc: ietf@ietf.org; www-forms@w3.org; www-html@w3.org
> Subject: Re: HTML forms
>
>
> On Thu, 30 Mar 2000 13:03:07 PST, "James P. Salsman" said:
> > is assured on almost all controversial matters.  The W3C,
> > however, constrains meaningful debate to those willing and able
> > to pay US$50,000 per year.  I agree that there was a point in
> > the early development of web standards when that constraint was
> > beneficial.  Now, however, with Netscape owned by a company
>
> Why was it beneficial then?
>
> > shipping MSIE, and the stagnation or regression of the core HTML
> > standards, along with the concerns raised in Norman Solomon's
> > article, I believe the time has come to return certain aspects
>
> And why is it non-beneficial now, given the apparent complexity of
> getting a product shipped (look at the current state of Mozilla)?
> Let's face it - anybody who intends to ship a working browser will
> need to have enough programmers that the $50K is the least of the problems.
>
> Yes, this cuts Mozilla out unless somebody pays for their membership. On
> the other hand, are there any other *real* contenders for whom $50K would
> be a hardship?
>
> > of the control of HTML to the IETF.  Even if that view is not
> > shared by the IETF, I the only way I would not be certain that
> > a debate on the topic would be healthy for the Internet communty
> > would be if the W3C were to take an affirmative stand on issues
> > involving microphone upload for language instruction and
> > asyncronous audio conferencing.
>
> Umm.. Microphone upload is the *least* of the many challenges facing
> HTML at the current time.
>
> --
> 				Valdis Kletnieks
> 				Operating Systems Analyst
> 				Virginia Tech
>

Received on Friday, 31 March 2000 01:26:36 UTC