Re: [ontolog-forum] Please thread the discussion

["Stavros Macrakis" <macrakis@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>The history of technology is littered with forgotten standards which lost out to de facto standards.

The bad thing is the following sequence:...
This isn't so bad (think of Java):...

There are many failure modes:

1) A standard is developed, and multiple incomplete and incompatible implementations coexist indefinitely.
2) A company develops a specification which it submits to standards organizations.  Its competitors then make sure that the standard version is different enough that the original company can't benefit from its existing implementation.
3) A standard is developed, but most implementations are based on a (buggy or incomplete) open-source implementation.
4) Multiple standards are developed and implemented: "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." (Andy Tanenbaum)
5) A standard is developed, and each vendor implements a large set of proprietary enhancements.
6) A standard is developed, but its specification is not complete enough/explicit enough/accurate enough that any two conforming implementations will actually interoperate.
7) A perfect standard is developed, but takes so long to develop that some proprietary technology already owns the market.

etc. etc. etc.

         -s
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