W3C and the public (was Namespaces Revisited...)

Simon St.Laurent (simonstl@simonstl.com)
Tue, 15 Sep 1998 07:42:59 -0400

Tim Bray wrote:
>For what it's worth, the XML process has been *extremely* open to
>comments and considered, exhaustively and at great length, the issue
>of whether what we're trying to do with namespaces could be done
>better with architectural forms or some variation thereon. [snipped]
>
>I fully acknowledge that you disagree with the conclusion that the
>committee came to, but it is incorrect and damaging to allege that
>the process ignored the input.

One area in which the W3C could do a lot to improve its openness and
therefore its process is by paying attention to the public portions of its
site. The w3.org/XML page doesn't even _list_ the latest namespaces draft;
the 'highlights' at the top is all past and gone. The last modified date
at the bottom is 9/11/98 - maybe someone fixed a typo.

The XSL project really achieved a new level of openness with 'features'
like an openly announced schedule. Other projects might earn a lot more
goodwill from developers (especially the freeware communities that are
producing a lot of the implementations) if they would take a similar approach.

I shouldn't have to ask on XML-Dev what the W3C is doing - the list of
activities ought to be posted publicly. I certainly shouldn't have to rely
on finetuning.com and sunsite.unc.edu/xml for links to the latest drafts.
And it would be really, really nice to have some idea if and when there are
ever going to be new drafts of XLink and XPointer.

Even better would be a page that mentions all the W3C activities devoted to
XML development, so I wouldn't have to figure out where they hid XSL...

So, what are you crazy folks up to? Hopefully something interesting. I'm
sure lots of us would like to provide input, if we can only find out what's
going on...

Simon St.Laurent
Dynamic HTML: A Primer / XML: A Primer
Cookies / Sharing Bandwidth (November)
Building XML Applications (December)
http://www.simonstl.com