on web standards: sent to Markoff

["Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>]

here's a quickie rant about software standards sent to Markoff, precipitated 
by his recent column on Berners Lee & the Web. please help kill the urban 
legend I refer to in this letter.

------- Forwarded Message

Subject: tim berners lee etc.
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 95 00:39:44 -0800
From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>


I read your recent article on Tim Berners Lee. there is a misconception
in the article that annoys me and that I have seen you/others repeat
elsewhere. the following myth is:

COMPANIES SET STANDARDS.

this is not really true. in the short term, companies can set whatever
"standards" they like. but in the long term, the *market* decides what
standards are acceptable. an example of this was IBM: they set various
standards until the market decided that the "standards" they were setting
were not acceptable. they became their own worst enemy. no amount of
shovelling their ideas down consumer's throats via million dollar ad
campaigns or sales pressure changed the basic reality
of what the market wanted. even though "microchannel" may have been
technically superior, consumers consistently decided the proprietary
price of the architecture was not worth the extra economic burden
to obtain it.

you and others are continually reiterating and reinforcing this myth
in regards to web software in your writing. you talk about 
various companies as if they
could somehow seize various standards for their own and exclude other
companies (Netscape's supposed proprietary web "standards" are an example).
this is fallacious for the reason I outlined above. the market
may not tolerate this exclusivity, and particularly in the area of 
computer software and hardware this has been shown emphatically so.

furthermore, the idea that companies can legislate their own web
standards is particularly ludicrous. it is true that netscape has
added their own "extensions" that their own browser understands and
other browsers initially do not. but nothing prevents other companies
from immediately incorporating these "enhancements" so that they
are recognized by their own software. in fact this is trivial to do
so in many cases (e.g. one of these so-called "enhancements" is blinking
text in web pages). so the idea that a single web company can somehow
monkeywrench the standards process by introducing new ideas is 
absurd and completely ignorant of reality.

in fact this rapid "standard" fluctation is the heart of innovation.
it is true that the web standard is fluctuating very rapidly right
now, but that is not evidence of companies trying to seize the standard
for their own: instead it is the chief sign of dynamic and rapid innovation.

I urge you to read Bill Gate's recent book. he addresses this continual
myth that people yammer about, namely the idea that individual companies
can set exclusive or proprietary standards. a company standard is in
fact a sort of temporary whirlpool in time: it will exist only so
long as the forces surrounding it support it. a single company can
temporarily create an illusion that their standards are the only ones
available, but the market may eventually decide that their standard is
not appropriate. Microsoft would crumble in a short amount of time if
they failed to deliver what the market demands, and Gates reiterates
this theme.

it is tempting to think of Microsoft or Netscape as large behemoths
that "drive the market". this is true in the short term but 
in truth over the long term the market drives these companies,
and they lose market share if they become irrelevant. it is useful
to look at one company as a focus of market forces, not the determinant
of them.

in my opinion the idea that various companies are in control of the
market is not only erroneous but highly dangerous. it leads to the
view that the government has to step in to promote "fair competition"
or "legislate standards". these approaches are usually total failures
because they completely neglect the true nature of the innovation of
ideas, something that is expressed quite tangibly and viscerally in
software development, but this simple point various people still
utterly fail to grasp.

its quite dramatic to write about single companies such as Microsoft
or Netscape as if they have tremendous power and influence over
the industry. various companies have found however that this 
influence is highly fleeting if they are not in tune with market
currents. companies are subservient to the market, not vice versa.
please strive to recognize this basic fact in your future writing.


p.s. I am willing to work this into a letter to the editor if you are
willing to publish it.