Other List Domains [+]
- Separate list domains for faculties, departments and business units
-
Tommy Yu
Tommy Yu
CellML Discussion List
Text archives Help
- From: p.hunter at auckland.ac.nz (Peter Hunter)
- Subject: [cellml-discussion] Opinion on multiple standards
- Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2008 02:15:18 +1300
Dear Michael,
I agree completely with your views. Our combined challenge now is to try to
agree on common metadata
standards that suit both SBML and CellML. The meeting in April will be an
opportunity to do this.
Cheers,
Peter
Michael Hucka wrote:
> AT> P.S. regarding different standards or notation
> AT> systems, it will be never irrelevant to have multiple
> AT> standards (domination may be mantra of Microsoft), it
> AT> gives freedom to choose and that's beauty of open
> AT> community based projects.
>
> What follows is personal opinion, not an official position
> on behalf of any group I'm involved with.
>
> Agreement on single open standards for single domains or
> application areas *is* beneficial and a goal to strive for.
> An example of this is today's web. Would the web be what it
> is today if people had not settled on one set of standards
> (HTML for describing pages, HTTP for the protocol)?
> Agreement on single standards in single application areas is
> what enables practical interoperability in those areas.
> (Sure, you can have interoperability even in the face of
> multiple standards, but it's a lot more expensive to
> implement, and thus not practical in the long run.)
>
> Note that my claim is specifically about *single* domains.
> Multiple standards are definitely needed for non-overlapping
> (or mostly non-overlapping) domains or application areas.
>
> Multiple proposed standards for the same single domain arise
> (1) in the early stages when people are still grappling with
> understanding their needs on the one hand, and implications
> of specific format/notation/whatever choices on the other;
> (2) when an established standard is found to be deficient
> as a result of experience, evolution, and/or innovation.
> For #2, if things have been going well, people will want to
> update an existing standard (e.g., version 1->2) rather than
> replace it entirely, but in other cases, wholesale
> replacement may be called for.
>
> I hypothesize that when people say "multiple standards are
> good in open community projects", it's because people
> actually are thinking about multiple application areas, or
> an area has not settle on common standards, or people are
> dissatisfied with the existing standards.
>
> People sometimes bring up Microsoft as a counter-example to
> single standards. The actual problem is not the adoption of
> single standards, it's Microsoft's specific approach, which
> involves (i) a single entity making top-down decisions for
> its own needs without consultation with other groups, (ii)
> not documenting the formats, (iii) changing the formats
> roughly every time they update their applications without
> prior announcement, and (iv) a belligerent business style.
> In other words, people's problem with Microsoft is actually
> rooted in Microsoft's lack of an open process. I wager
> Microsoft would be viewed much more favorably if they
> developed their document formats using a bottom-up community
> process.
>
> In summary, I claim that there are reasons why an area might
> end up with multiple proposed standards, but it is false
> that having multiple standards is better than using one
> standard when a single one can be agreed upon.
>
> Agreement on a single standard certainly takes a lot of
> effort, exploration, and time, on both the technical aspects
> of defining the standard and the social aspects of arranging
> community buy-in. Sometimes it takes decades before
> quiescence is reached on a given topic. But once a
> sufficiently good single standard for a given area can be
> found, it is far better to stick with it, and spend your
> efforts on something else.
>
> MH
>
> _______________________________________________
> cellml-discussion mailing list
> cellml-discussion at cellml.org
> http://www.cellml.org/mailman/listinfo/cellml-discussion
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: p_hunter.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 376 bytes
Desc: not available
URL:
<http://www.cellml.org/pipermail/cellml-discussion/attachments/20081101/e5a42ab6/attachment.vcf>
- [cellml-discussion] Opinion on multiple standards, Peter Hunter, 11/01/2008
Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.18.
