Re: WWW2004 panel proposal

At 10:08 PM 2/8/04 -0500, david_marston@us.ibm.com wrote:

>My proposal has been accepted!
>
>The acceptance note said that other details will follow later, so I still 
>don't know which day it will be. Regarding content, Lloyd Rutledge (Panels 
>Chair) wrote:
>We have some feedback we'd appreciate you applying to the panel while
>preparing it for the conference. This can apply to the writeup that will
>appear in the program, as well as the communication with the panelists
>and general planning. Most of all, the we feel the panel should be more
>controversial -- if everyone agrees on the topic from the start, it
>makes a dull conversation. It may help to have an "anti-interop (ish)"
>position that you might get someone to champion is the "market leader"
>position -- "We will be better than an open/interoperable system because
>(a) we can tightly integrate pieces, (b) because our 'internal'
>interfaces are not public/interoperable, we are not tied to obsolete
>internal interfaces and we can change them as needed, and/or (c) we can
>introduce new functionality more quickly than a standards group." Of
>course, interoperability is "a good thing", put people can disagree on
>how much to have, not to mention *how*.
>
>I think we have plenty of controversy built in with the proposed topics, 
>but I can also think of ways to bring up the anti-interop subjects. 
>Getting an advocate for that position might be harder,

There are at least two ways to get more controversy.  As Lloyd suggested, 
find a proponent of the argument that the "sole-source" approach as the 
only practical way -- in other words anti-interop, 
anti-open-standards.  Another is:  "interop is a worthy goal, but it is 
largely unattainable".  I.e., despite the lofty goals of W3C and other 
standards bodies, successful seamless interop on a large scale simply isn't 
happening.  Etc.

>because the whole underpinning of WWW (and by extension, this conference) 
>is openness and interop. Why would a proponent of proprietary technology 
>attend this conference?

There are examples of the dominant, almost-sole-source proprietor of a 
technology joining Working Groups, for less-than-noble reasons.  One of the 
most benign reasons is:  gather intelligence.  The reasons go downhill from 
there.

>If we have a visible bad guy, does that make this discussion really 
>balanced, or just give us a pre-ordained loser of the argument?   Your 
>thoughts?

I'm not sure that a proponent of "open, seamless interop is a noble but 
unattainable goal" would necessarily be the loser (or maybe "unattained" 
would be better than "unattainable").  She/he would have plenty of 
historical examples to draw upon to defend the point.

-Lofton.