Re: W3C Invitation

[Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@xxxxxxx>]

On May 14, 2004, at 12:01 PM, Micone, Andrew (Manpower Contract) wrote:

> Michael (Champion) wrote:
> "Finding anyone insane enough to chair this hornets nest who has the
> skills necessary to do a good job and the time/energy needed to make
> this a success will be difficult at best."

Non-issue; both Sam and I have willingness to take it on and sign-off 
from our employers, wherever it is.

> "The successes of W3C during the browser wars were possible because
> the *individuals* got along just fine...I think even the most casual
> observer of the RSS/Atom world would be inclined to doubt that these
> conditions are duplicated "
>
> I couldn't agree with you more.

I don't agree; there were some pretty toxic personalities around the 
HTML wars too.  The W3C process was able to get some progress happening 
precisely they locked the doors and excluded the marketing groups.  
Fortunately, we don't seem to have dueling marketing groups involved in 
syndication, just thin-skinned techies.

> Which again comes down to the crux of the issue as to whether with a
> lighweight process can be hammered out, otherwise the member
> organizations are going to need to pony up some heavyweight resources
> for a heavyweight process. Atom isn't a standard big companies can yet
> grasp

Well, are you sure that IETF process is going to be lighter in weight?  
I'm not.  And as for big companies not being able to grasp Atom, get 
real.  Check out my email address. -Tim