Re: [xml-dev] version numbers and infosets

Elliotte Rusty Harold scripsit:

> I'll listen to arguments about justice for people. I find arguments 
> about justice for mainframes to be laughable. What's next? Justice 
> for cell phones? Justice for Apple IIs? Justice for PDP-11s? Justice 
> for weed whackers? Give me a break.

People use mainframes, and XML too.  If XML 1.0 had insisted
that only CR-LF and LF were acceptable line terminators, don't you
think an argument based on justice for Mac users would have been
appropriate?

You mention the legal principle of "stare decisis".  This is by no means
applied in every area of the law, and in particular gives way before
claims of natural equity.  It is *not* always more important that the
law be unchanging than that it do justice or right.

"It is intolerable to have no better reason for a legal rule than
that *thus* it was laid down in the time of King Henry the Second."

-- 
John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_

Received on Tuesday, 23 July 2002 14:49:44 UTC