On 13 May 2009, at 11:21, Bijan Parsia wrote:
[snip]
And, to be clear, I'm not always (or typically) very good at the
political side in practice because I'm (as should be evident) a
grouchy person.
To try to summarize constructively, Michael:
HCLSIG cannot, itself, standardize SBML under the current charter.
HCLSIG can, of course, do a lot of things that make standardization
of SBML more likely. One thing it to publicize it, evangelize it, and
gather evidence of consensus behind it. Not only can it do these
things for various technologies, it's arguably part of its purpose.
Some of those things (e.g., making a W3C member submission) can be
done even outside of HCLSIG, so if the group doesn't have the energy
to pursue it, there are other avenues for pursuing standardization at
the W3C.
Standardization is expensive to you and to other people, so it's
good to have a clear, neutrally worded case prepared (think of it as
the first step toward standardization). It's kinda like a grant
application. I'm not saying that you need it all worked up now, but a
simple spiel like, "Hey, we have some commercial interested in SBML
that would benefit from a unifying standard." helps let people start
considering whether they think it's worth it.
Cheers,
Bijan.
