On 5/12/07, Glynn Foster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Shawn Walker wrote: > As long as there is a way for users to get a fully standards-compliant > environment when they need / want it, I'm happy. Solaris' strict > standards compliance is one of the things I liked about it most. I > started using GNU/Linux in 1996, and didn't start using Solaris until > 2005. Standards compliance and documentation were the two areas the > stood out the most when I started using it. I agree with everything you've said, but I do wonder what happens when volume overcomes standards. For example, in GNOME/KDE/... we don't really have any real formal standards body behind a lot of our freedesktop.org based work. We use the term 'defacto standard' to pretty much mean that the technology has been discussed, a document written describing it, and adopted by enough projects that have influence over a volume of users. Are we getting to the stage where volume is trumping an official formal standard? - it's an open question, I don't have any answers.
Interesting question. One thing to think about is how standards have changed.. It's no longer big vendors in a room deciding what "the standard" is (i.e., the top down approach). It's more the developers (largely in open source projects) deciding what "the standard" is as a side effect of writing their code.. How do we adapt to the new reality? -ian -- Ian Murdock 650-331-9324 http://ianmurdock.com/ "Don't look back--something might be gaining on you." --Satchel Paige _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
