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  • To: 'Dare Obasanjo' <dareo@m...>, xml-dev <xml-dev@l...>
  • Subject: RE: You call that a standard?
  • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
  • Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 10:49:36 -0500

What if:

1.  It is ISO standard (which has a specific meaning) 
    but created by technical committees from consortia 
    (not the marketing guys who go to committee meetings 
    to represent their bosses viewpoint).

2.  Is Royalty-free by dint of a signed participation 
    agreement.

3.  Comes with conformance tests and a test mark (a 
    formal variation of a trade mark).

Would that be 'meaningful'?

len

From: Dare Obasanjo [mailto:dareo@m...]

The word "standard' when it comes to software and computer technology is
usually meaningless. Is something standard if it produced by a standards
body but has no conformance tests (e.g. SQL)? What if it has conformance
testing requirements but is owned by a single entity (e.g. Java)? What if it
is just widely supported with no formal body behind it (e.g. RSS)? 
 
Whenever I hear someone say standard it's as meaningless to me as when I
hear the acronym 'SOA', it means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. 
 

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