Re: [RDA-L] Feedback on RDA

[Bernhard Eversberg]

Myers, John F. wrote:

The deadlines were there to ensure that the responses were submitted on
time to the JSC which was operating under the dual time constraints of
its own meeting schedule and the deadlines set by the publishers. ... 

Deadlines set by the publishers, well. One has to accept they have their 
schedule as well, and one item on it is tomorrow, the day when
they obviously expect the return on their investment to begin flowing.
In the logic of business, that's full well OK, no one should blame them.
There was probably no other or no realistic way to get the whole RDA
enterprise off the ground, given the way U.S. librarianship is
organized and funded, than by turning it over to ALA Publishing - the
way it had been with AACR all the time, to the benefit of all parties
involved. And now, of course, the whole thing has progressed way beyond
all points of no return.

The only snag is that this precluded all open source activities from
the start. A matter that just did not arise with AACR.
The library world will swallow this, as the publishers know
from some experience, but will "other communities"? Has there been,
I just wonder, any official reasoning on this matter? Must have missed it.

B.Eversberg