SMIL Boston participants (was: Re: Another Microsoft ploy)

Nicholas, Jared,

While it is true that Microsoft is now participating in the SMIL
effort again, they are by far not the only company involved. The 
W3C press release
http://www.w3.org/1999/08/smil-pressrelease

names the 15 other companies and organisations that are represented
in the working group working on SMIL Boston:

"Current members of the W3C Working Group working on SMIL are key 
international industry players in Web multimedia, interactive television 
and audio/video streaming. In alphabetical order, they are: Canon, 
Compaq, CSELT, CWI/Oratrix, France Telecom, Gateway, GLOCOM, INRIA, 
Intel, Macromedia, Microsoft, NIST, Panasonic, Philips and 
RealNetworks."

Also,  the testimonials in the press release also come from 
several big names in the multimedia area:
http://www.w3.org/1999/08/smil-test

Unfortunately, there was one article in the press that pictured 
this as a  Microsoft-only effort, which may have given you the
wrong impression. I can tell you that is not true, and believe
that the other participants in the SYMM WG are not very happy about
seeing their contribution neglected in this way

As for W3C being closed: The main motivation for making the working
draft available in its current rough form and very early in the
the development is that people working for non-W3C members can
get early access to the draft, and give feedback. We believe in
the "relase early, release often" credo for specs as well as
for open software.

It would be good if you could point out the sections in the draft 
that you consider to be too complicated to develop for. 

-Philipp Hoschka, W3C
Chair Synchronized Multimedia WG

Nicholas Roberts wrote:
> 
> I agree, it is getting to a stage that only corporations can keep-up, let alone develop for, the W3C's standards.
> 
> XML is far more complex and inacessible than HTML, SMIL Boston is being pushed by a Microsoft effort faster than anything else can keep-up.
> 
> W3C is an industry consortium and is NOT a democratic organisation.
> 
> GNU efforts are the only alternative, yet my guess is that if the big technical corporates, like HP and AT&T, keep becoming more MS based than Unix, than the friendly hosts for GNU will evaporate.
> 
> The simple situation is that IE5 and MediaPlayer will take over the web.
> 
> Only the Department of Justice can alter this!
> 
> ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
> From: Jared Nichols <jfn0870@ritvax.isc.rit.edu>
> Date: Thu, 05 Aug 1999 11:56:33 -0400
> 
> >Don't you people see that this is just another ploy my Big Red to  get
> their poorly programming fingers into another aspect of the web?  Come on
> here, you gotta be crazy to start letting Micro$oft making the standards.
> Next thing you know it, they'll have the only software program out that can
> program SMIL and it will be a shoddy, bloat-ridden piece of code.  Don't
> say you weren't warned.
> 
> Jared Nichols
> jfn0870@rit.edu
> 
> --
> 
> --
> Nicholas Roberts
> mailto:nicholas@synarchy.net
> +44 (0)181 960 8931
> Synarchy Universalis Ltd
> http://synarchy.net/
> 
> --

Received on Friday, 13 August 1999 12:48:14 UTC