| When a small company does this, it doesn't do much dam; when the
| market leader does it, it effectively derails standardization attempts.
| That *is* what you're going to do, whether it's intentional or not...
I'm mostly surprised that you are surprised. Didn't you
That lesson was well understood by the savvy.ubr>
That is why catcalls com> in from the elders of the
Oh, and underinformed overhyped religio/techno
"One generation got old; one generation got sold. Thisubr>
generation's got no destination to hold. Pick up your prize!!"
And she did.
Mark Andreeson made the statement in an interview that once
Everyone will call for standards. Everyone will try to influence
As to history, it is a lot of old stories, and no one cares
The old story: Geeks Bearing Gifts. Just as it was
It is done. Accept the fact that for over a year, an entire community
Len Bullard
know that industry harvests the net efforts like
net fishermen? (no pun intended but comparison is
valid). They don't want a single standard. They never
did, and when they do, they go to ISO or ANSI because
the sam> processes and policies that slow the development
also make
cheap and dirty solutions for little bits of functionality that
everyone loved because they had never seen a real
hypermedia system before and thought the WWW was one.ubr>
hypertext community. They have seen real systems and
knew what the impact of the WWW would be. They knew
what they had seen in the 70s and 60s when people got very
excited only to discover they got lost very quickly in the ratsmaze
and just as disenchanted. The cumulative effect of
WWW/HTML was a power base shift. Now instead
of leadership from SoftQuad or EBT who understand the problems
better, Netsc
the need for stronger protocols and multiple protocols
(workflow protocols for collaborative conversations will emerge soon)
or they understand that too well and seek to ensure that everyone
else plays catchup.ubr>
pubs like Wired sell it to you, for a healthy
advertising revenue and a shocking sticker price.
Do you think Lady Jane does this just to hang out with
Negroponte?ubr>
Jefferson Airplane - "Volunteers"
he left NCSA, he realized it should have been done
by a private firm. Of course. The river was dammed at that point
by Mosaic and HTML, and all he had to do was put a generator
inline to draw the power. Chaos theorists call this "draw" and
note that once the volume and rate exceeds
changing its direction requires massive catastrophe or very astute
non-linear warfare. Next time you volunteer to build freeware
for the "good of humanity" remember this: a prophet leads you
to the river jordan, but a warrior king leads you to do battle
to wrest a "promised land" from its indigena>
them by outright gifts (what was done to VRML) or
by dominating the ISO or ANSI committees. Everyone will
exploit the outcom>. Everyone will destabilize them a bit
with non-linear "extensions". Don't blam> the guys who helped
you. Their manrs are "enlightened c
variants is the essence of vertical market competition.
about them except the historians. Glory fades; interest compounds.ubr>
in a long ago conflict between two barbaric civilizations
seeking to control trade routes, but citing an incident
of morality, the con requires naive acceptance of that gift
without examining the intent of the giver or the contents
of the gift. Don't complain, or at least, not
of interest got to watch and participate. To be sure,
much has been learned from that by large numbers
of people who couldn't fly to meetings or pay membership
dues. Today, you can '"surf" 3-D. Take
and, Welcom> to the Competition for VRML 2.x.