Brendan Eich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
Bryan W. Taylor wrote:
Mozilla Foundation has actually talked to many enterprise companies, both "I/T end user" and ISV or I/T supplier, including those that have supported XForms -- including those who helped fund the development of the spec in the w3c process. The consistent answer is "no".
I imagine you would have got a similar reaction in the early 1990's if you asked companies if they planned to deploy HTML. Deployment interest is a lagging indicator for IT progress, sort of like employment is a lagging indicator for the econony.
I think we should go to private mail, or to n.p.m.general. We're not talking about layout algorithms or data structures, or layout markup language design issues, at all here. So this will be my last off-topic reply.
Focus group marketing fails by driving with eyes on the rear-view mirror, yeah. But that doesn't mean "let's do the next big undertested standard". You can't argue _a posteriori_ that because HTML took over from vertical/proprietary client/server crap in the early nineties, XForms is clearly the one true way forward.
For one thing, there are too many "big undertested standard" candidates to choose from.
By the way, what was the question that they said "no" to exactly?
One very important "they" was an SVP at a very large I/T supplier, who saw no point in only Mozilla, not IE, or Opera, or Safari, having native XForms support.
linux on the desktop (hard, not impossible). It's even a bit easier than linux on the desktop for two reasons: first using mozilla does not require them to "switch", since both can run side by side on windows,
Sorry, you are not dealing with the same realities I am. Most IE shops do not want to deploy, train, admin, etc. a second browser. Period, end of story.
As for XForms specifically, my experience is that companies don't care about new buzzwords until somebody demonstrates the value they offer. Once they see the value, they tend to react quickly. XForms may have been talked about for years within W3C and other circles, but from a deployer's perspective it's only starting to be marketable from respected vendors like Oracle, Novell, IBM, and Apache Cocoon. You are only starting to see the trade journals write articles touting XForms and books appearing about XForms.
Hold that thought. We shall see how many of those vendors (Cocoon's not quite a vendor, but ok) are still pushing XForms in a year.
But again, those vendors are *not* pushing *native browser-based XForms implementations*. For good reasons that you keep ignoring, which have nothing to do with me or my opinions.
In an article called "Hands on XForms", Micah Dubinko summarized the state of XForms well:
"XForms has made vast strides in 2003, becoming a technology suitable for production use by early adopters. Already, businesses are using XForms to produce real documents similar to the one shown in this article. The combination of an open standard with a wide variety of both free and commercial browsers makes a powerful business case for deploying XForms solutions."
http://www.sys-con.com/xml/article.cfm?id=686&count=10327&tot=3&page=3
Come on! Micah's a nice guy, but he's an XForms true believer and insider. Try citing some authority who lives at a good remove, who can claim objectivity.
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