>And Tom W said:
>>As far as I know W3C is an industry forum and doesn't have formal status
>>with ISO.
"Roger Debreceny" <rogerd@netbox.com> wrote:
>As I understand the situation, Tim Berners-Lee and the W3 Consortium made
>the deliberate decision *not* to proceed thru the ISO, as the time taken at
>the ISO was considerably longer than the half life of a W3C "standard". I
>guess we've worked with RFCs for many years and who's heard of being
>governed by a standard which is a "Request for Comment", for goodness sake!
><g>
>From my visit last week, and other sources, I understand that relations are
cordial (that's a *straight* statement, not a political one); but Roger
D's expressed it rather nicely ...
As the web matures, and the half-lives of (versions of) standards lengthen,
the tests will be:
(1) will the forum called W3C be able to mobilise the industry against the
potential dominators (MS today, but remember IBM?) to ensure that
open standards are sustained; and
(2) will the 'membership' of the forum be broadened to cover all
stakeholders.
Call me an optimist, but I'm hopeful on both counts.
Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
http://www.etc.com.au/Xamax/
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916 mailto:Roger.Clarke@anu.edu.au
Visiting Fellow, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA
Information Sciences Building Room 211 Tel: +61 2 6249 3666