The ISO are now calling a “standard” the Microsoft Office format [...] What is interesting is that TeX, LaTeX, OGG/Vorbis, OGG/Theora, Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby, OCaml, are not standardized by any organization. [...] This shows that standardization organizations are no longer relevant in the software field. What really matters is free full documentation, free full implementation source code, and of course the absence of any patent risk. [...] In other words, what matters is evidence that any independent third-party can create and distribute a fully-conforming implementation.
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I broadly agree, but in contentious areas going through a standards process can do a world of good (like syndication did with Atom).
One of the problems I thought standards were meant to solve was interoperability - not just with other implementations, but with a single implementation over time.
Look at how PHP changes even over minor releases. When I still used PHP, I had code break on several occasions because they decided to introduce incompatible changes in minor patch releases for no good reason. Look at how much it changed even through 4.x releases. Most code written circa 4.0 won't run on a stock 4.4 installation without modification.
Python is the same, except they have an incredibly better improvement:breakage ratio.
If PHP and Python were standards, this would be different. Or should be different, at least. The W3C are not above this kind of chicanery. Name characters in CSS 2, for example. Are underscores valid? Well that depends on whether you are talking about CSS 2 written before April 2001 or CSS 2 written after April 2001.
I'd have more confidence in leaving standards organisations behind if it weren't for the fact that even the best open implementations leave a hell of a lot to be desired when it comes to release management.
At the moment, each and every patch release is a "new" standard to meet, and often I don't have a choice but to upgrade because bug fixes and security patches go along with the "new standard". Until this changes, I don't think standards organisations are obsolete.
Jim - 3rd April 2008 00:01 - #