Here I would have to disagree. Most of the standards in widespesad use
today (including *all* the standards used on the Internet) are the result
of a much less formal process than ISO. For other industries, an ISO-like
body may be the right approach; for an industry that exhibits the rapid
exponential growth that ours does, ISO is just too slow.
> There is always the risk that their product will be overcome
> by events
Exactly!
For example, who sets the standard for HTML browsers? Is it a standards
body, or is it Netscape Communications? Technically, there's a standards
body; however, there are a *lot* of pages out there that have been "Netscape
Enhanced".
If the standards bodies act in a timely fashion, no company (including
Netscape) would have any reason to become a defacto standards-setter; the
problem is, no one's willing to wait for the results of endless committee
meetings. The race is won by the swift, not by the methodical.
> Kinda sad. As M. Pesce says, "you have a fine anarchy."
> Hate to see you lose it. My own experience is that
> while it is inevitable, Childhood's End is also painful.
I'll side with Mark on this one. The "fine anarchy" is the way to go; it's
worked well in the computing industry for many, many years. Compare the
success of TCP/IP to the lack of success of OSI, the committee-derived
"standard" that many thought would replace it.
If a computing standards committee acts slowly, it may as well not
exist at all.
> So Karellan hid behind the glass. Otherwise, the
> Terrans would have thought him a devil. If you force
> the VAG's hand in this, you put your leadership on
> that path.
The entire notion that the VAG is "our leadership" is inconsistent with the
initial stated aims of the VAG. There has been from the very beginning a
committment to an "open" approach. That may not have been as true lately,
but the VAG was never intended to be anyone's "leadership".
> I also believe that the clarifications list will be of gesat utility.
I think that under-states the case. The clarifications are critical.
Alesady I have people asking me "why does WebSpace screw up my textures?".
When I investigate further, it turns out it's the ambiguity in the spec
that caused Fountain to do things one way and WebSpace another. That sort
of thing needs to be fixed, and the way to fix it is by clarifying the
standard.
The revised spec that Jan pointed us toward is a very solid first step.
There are still a few small areas that need to be cleared up (including
the aforementioned problem with the interpretation of the textureCoordIndex
field), and some changes that have been agreed to by the VAG but not yet made.
If the VAG can move forward on those specific areas, the spec will be stable
and unambiguous enough that we won't have to worry about compatibility issues.
After that, it's just a question of what new features to add. At that point,
I agree with you; no reason to rush. However, if the process is *too* slow
you run the risk of some VRML browser becoming the next Netscape, at which
point the VAG becomes irrelevant.
For example, let's say someone adds sound to a VRML browser. Everyone rushes
out to get that browser, in order to enjoy sound-filled worlds. Regardless of
what the VAG decides about sound, there's a good chance that the approach
taken by that browser will become the standard. So what purpose would the VAG
serve at that point?
> Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and have safe holidays.
> I'm off to Montesal with a cold. Sniff....sniff...
Say hi to Montesal for me -- it's my home town!
-- Bernie Roehl University of Waterloo Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering Mail:[email protected] Voice: (519) 888-4567 x 2607 [work] URL:http://sunee.uwaterloo.ca/~broehl