- From: Simon St.Laurent <simonstl@simonstl.com>
- Date: 22 May 2002 16:44:48 -0400
- To: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>
- Cc: www-rdf-interest@w3.org, www-talk@w3.org
On Wed, 2002-05-22 at 16:34, Tim Berners-Lee wrote: > 1. Corporations are designed by law to be selfish. Those which are not > (except non-profits) betray their shareholders unless they maximize > returns, > and they can be sued for it. > > 2. The W3C is only there because there is a selfish motivation for a > company > to join others in making a market bigger and more stable. W3C only > works in the win-win areas. > > That doesn't mean tha the corporation's general good exactly coincides > with your personal general good. But in the long run there are lots of > arguments as to why they should. So why exactly isn't the W3C a non-profit? Then we could stop pretending that corporate general-good=general general-good and get on with it. Oh right, the vendors would be unhappy with something that wasn't at least under general vendor control. Oh well. I'm tired of trying to convince people who genuinely believe that selfishness leads to generosity that there might be some other factors to consider. This line of argument merely convinces me further that the W3C is unsalvageable, period. I'll keep talking on W3C lists to try to contain the damage, but that's all I hope to accomplish. -- Simon St.Laurent Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets Errors, errors, all fall down! http://simonstl.com
Received on Wednesday, 22 May 2002 16:39:10 UTC