Re: www-standards?

lilley@v5.cgu.mcc.ac.uk (Chris Lilley, Computer Graphics Unit)
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Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 22:01:54 +0200
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From: lilley@v5.cgu.mcc.ac.uk (Chris Lilley, Computer Graphics Unit)
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
Subject: Re: www-standards?
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In article <9406161903.AA16506@server.bonnell.com>, William King said:

>you folks appear to be getting
>very close to attracting some attention from the standards community.
>My personal view is that the involvement of standards organizations in this
>activity might bring some value but that value might have a price.

Oh great. That worries me more than Microsoft. ISO picks it up and before we 
know it there is a DIS of HTML 2.0 expected in 2012! Aaargh. I mean, look at the 
timescale for a C binding to GKS. 

Plus there may be one or two changes happen when ISO take it on board. Look at 
what happened to the ISO standardisation of Modula-2. Then again, maybe they 
will standardise HTML 1.0 and prohibit any changes. Look at ISO Pascal. Or maybe 
they already have a hypermedia system or two .. look at Hyper-ODA, MHEG, PREMO, 
.. oh no, I feel most ill.

Unless they can take it and be the _sole_ controlling body, they aren't 
interested, too. Look at what happened to the ISO standardisation of X.

>There is certainly a trade-off here and I, for one, am not sure at what point
>in the formative cycle of a world-altering technology such as the web that the
>value of standards activity can be maximized and the cost minimized.
>I suspect that now is not the right time.

I concur.

--
Chris