John,
In defense of Sir Tim and gang, W3C is a reputable standards body. It
has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to involve legitimate experts
from many of the major information technology supply firms and to reach
viable standards that industry actually uses. The W3C process is
"open" (there is considerable debate about that term on other
exploders), and several of its products have become ISO standards.
Yes, W3C has produced some dubious work and some academically excellent
junk that is worthless in industry, but that is hardly unique for
reputable standards organizations. It is a particularly prominent
characteristic of ISO IT standards that did not arise from industry
consortia. More than half of the NCITS work and the ISO/IEC JTC1 work
and the IEEE work has proved to be worthless for one reason or
another. Even IETF has a mixed bag of successes and failures. Among
the consortia, a dozen W3C products have real industry significance and
have been adopted by ISO. By comparison, OMG has 5 widely
used standards that have gone to ISO, out of 50+ products. Other general IT consortia have
lesser track records. And every one of these organizations has a few
published standards that are just bad ideas. You have to kiss a lot of
frogs to find a prince.
The idea of 'de jure' standards is important in Europe in many areas,
and it is vitally important in international trade. But in the U.S.,
the only de jure standards are those made by regulatory agencies, and
there isn't a lot of that in the IT world, Deo gratias. U.S. industry
is effectively regulated by standards that touch on the IT industry as
it relates to established industries and their role in national and
international commerce, such as International Telecommunications Union
standards and International Electrotechnical Commission standards.
But for most industries in the U.S., standards are "voluntary". They
are agreements on how to do things that improve your ability to acquire
suppliers and create market, and you can use them where you see value,
and ignore them where you see other opportunities. In that world, the
standards that make a difference are 'de facto' -- the ones many
organizations actually use and build to. And at times, you have to
protect your product design decisions by participating in standards
activities that might be widely adopted, so as to ensure that they
don't consign your investments to the dustbin of history.
The function of most standards consortia that have come into existence
in the last 25 years is to provide an organization in which 'de facto'
standards for emerging technologies could be made, without having to
penetrate the established bodies that have been controlled by a handful
of old powers and old men, protecting their ways, since the
1970s. A few of those consortia have earned industry
recognition in particular areas of work, and W3C is among them. That
is why W3C is a respected 'standards development organization', and it
deserves that respect, even though not all of its projects do.
-Ed
P.S. You are absolutely right that a bad standard can wreak havoc, and
most senior standards people have had the experience of watching their
organization support a bad idea, or even worse, having championed one.
Bad standards arise from bad compromises, ignorance of (or defense
against) alternatives, and misapplied analogy (what my late mentor,
Selden Stewart called "the seductiveness of simple examples").
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority."
John F Sowa wrote:
Ed,
I agree with your comments about standards bodies. But the W3C is
a strange group with a confusing mix of missions.
In effect, they are a quasi-design group, a quasi-standards body
(but *not* an official standards body), a coalition of experts,
a coalition of implementers, and a coalition of grant-proposal
authors who promote (hype) a vision of the future that they hope
will inspire governments and businesses with deep pockets.
... standards bodies are not necessarily 'professional groups' in
the sense of 'professional societies'. They are merely sets of persons
representing organizations (or sometimes themselves) with the political
will and sufficient technical know-how (somewhere among them) to get a
standard made for some set of reasons.
I agree.
The value of one contributor may be to keep the meetings on track,
the value of another may be to write the agreements clearly, and
the value of three others may be in their ability to discuss and
resolve the deep technical issues, and the value of two more may be
< to ensure that you don't have to understand the problem at that level
in order to use the standard correctly, and there may be yet one or
two more whose value is to translate between terminologies and find
compromises. It takes a village...
I agree with that policy for the ISO process, which requires a lengthy
review before any draft is approved as a standard. The W3C, however,
takes pride in the speed with which they approve an RFC (Request
for Comment). Those RFCs are not official standards, but people
often treat them as standards. That can be a serious problem.
Academics can add to such a body the deep expertise that leads
to a viable basis for a common solution, or they can just add
religious purism to one side or the other.
As somebody who has worked on both sides of the fence, I can
sympathize with and get upset about both of them.
I don't know how to create a good standards committee. I only
know one when I see one. The good ones make good, not necessarily
excellent, standards efficiently, and they do it with a combination
of people who have different skills but can work well together.
I agree.
And even then, we all know that technical excellence in a product
doesn't necessarily beget either success or value.
That is certainly true. But bad decisions that people implement
can produce some very bad results. I've seen that when I was
at IBM, and I get upset whenever I see it today.
John
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