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Re: Why Standards?
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Posted: May 12, 2004 1:48 AM
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A standards is usually developed as an agreement between parties in a certain technology area. Standards are not developed to be perfect solutions to emmerging tehcnology trends or requirements. Avoiding standards and going off on a technology solo-run is something that only large software vendors like Microsoft, IBM and Sun can afford to do.
Also, when large software vendors do that it is damaging for smaller vendors. Example: The original WS-Security specification as developed by Microsoft was a fairly good specification, but the fact that it was not owned by a standards body has made it nearly unusable. Microsoft kept changing central parts of the specification, such as namespaces, seemingly at random, which has made it impossible for software vendors to interoperate. Microsoft have continued to bastardise their own specification even after the Oasis donation.
Standards are like socialism for the IT industry: It helps smaller companies compete, but at the cost of poorer technology solutions and slowing down development.
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