Re: TAG and WWW Architecture

Al --

Well said.

> [disclaimer:  I am a W3C Collaborator, but not a Member.  I have agreed to

I am not an insider in any sense.

> . . .                  But the idea that the W3C has taken upon itself to
> claim
> a role of public trust, to make technical decisions on behalf of a wider
> community that lacks the communication tools to bring the same matters to
> resolution in as little calendar time -- that idea is hard-wired into the
> Consortium deal.   . . .

Indeed.  It is a public trust that is validated in part by the close
association of its leadership with the donors of a great free gift to
the world, made with no strings attached: HyperText Transfer Protocol
and its default content-type HyperText Markup Language.

I perceive part of what has emerged from W3C since its formation as
defense of the integrity of that gift.

Moreover, the public's trust does and will ultimately rest in the
continued soundness of the recommendations that W3C publishes.  The
point where those recommendations show up with faults (other than
self-serving resistance in certain instances of some in the community)
will be the time to object.

                                    -- Bill


\include{institutionalDisclaimer}

William F. Hammond                   Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics
518-442-4625                                  The University at Albany
hammond@math.albany.edu                      Albany, NY 12222 (U.S.A.)
http://www.albany.edu/~hammond/                Dept. FAX: 518-442-4731

Never trust an SGML/XML vendor whose web page is not valid HTML.
And always support affirmative action on behalf of the finite places.

Received on Wednesday, 6 June 2001 11:54:04 UTC