On Wed, 25 May 2011, Paul Kraus wrote:
The standards committees I have observed (I have never been on one) are generally in the audio space and not the computer, but while they welcome "guests", the decisions are reserved for the committee members. Committee membership is not open to anyone who wants to be on the committee, but those with a degree of expertise in the area the committee is addressing. Anything else leads to madness.
Not necessarily madness. As I mentioned to Garrett, the IETF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IETF) holds totally open meetings and mailing lists. Anyone who shows up can vote on whatever is discussed and all votes count as equal. There is no need to pay for attendance, no need to apply for acceptance, no need to show an ID at the door, and anyone can just walk in, yet actions and demonstrated implementations speak louder than any words. Anyone can write an RFC as long as it meets certain standards. However, the IETF also has a "working code" requirement and demands several independent interoperable implementations before some new interface can be accepted for the standards track.
The method the IETF uses seems to be particularly immune to vendor interference. Vendors who want to participate in defining an interoperable standard can achieve substantial success. Vendors who only want their own way encounter deafening silence and isolation.
Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfrie...@simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
