Re: W3C response to proposed Atom Publishing Format and Protocol (atompub) working group

[Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@xxxxxxx>]

On May 13, 2004, at 8:41 AM, Eric Miller wrote:

> Due to its close relationship to the range of Web-based technologies, 
> we suggest that the Atom community propose to do this work in the W3C.

My take on this.

Advantages of the W3C:
- Web-centric, which Atom is
- good IPR policies
- one person getting paid to work on Atom understands the process (me)

Disadvantages of the W3C:
- many active Atom people don't work for W3C members

Advantages of the IETF:
- Open to all who participate
- Predisposition to do most of work by email
- "Rough consensus and running code"

Disadvantages of the IETF:
- No long-term Atom community members really understand the process

Personally, I think we could get a good result in either organization 
and would not push back against the community if many voices were 
raised in favor of switching horses to the W3C.  Looking at the pros 
and cons above, my leaning is towards the IETF.  I tend not to be too 
worried about intellectual-property issues on this one, since 
syndication technology has been around for a long long time, back to 
the days of 110-baud modems; it's really hard to imagine a credible 
claim lurking out there.

-Tim