XMLizations

Monday, April 20, 1998 by Dave Winer.

I've been doing more top-level thinking over the last few days wandering around open source and vector graphic standards and the RPC-over-HTTP stuff we've been working on and where it's going and who else is working here and who isn't.

The thoughts arrange themselves in bullet points!

Real quick stuff.

And it goes somewhere.

Let's go! 

1. PGML is the opening of Postscript. Adobe turned it over to a standards body. If it weren't for the euphoria around XML, people would have noticed this! A previously controlled standard is now open. Adobe isn't the only one with Postscript tools and renderers. It's major letting-go of power.

2. On Scripting News today, one of the architects of DCOM, Bob Atkinson, talks in the present tense about Microsoft's plans to transport DCOM over HTTP. If you follow Microsoft I strongly suggest reading this piece.

http://www.scripting.com/98/04/stories/bobAtkinsonOnHttpPost.html

3. Eric Hahn, the CTO at Netscape, is also excited about this idea, as he said here last week, but he probably doesn't think in terms of XMLizing DCOM.

4. What other XMLizations are coming? Is Apple working on the XMLization of the Apple Event Manager? I want them to.

5. In the meantime, the stocks of Internet content and commerce companies are soaring. Jeff Bezos at Amazon is nearly a billionaire. Money is everywhere. New technologies are showing up daily that create opportunities for even more billions. When will it end? Not this year it seems. In this festival of money, why is so much of the talk about giving it away? Curious!

6. Technology moves on, quicker and quicker. What was once a deep proprietary advantage becomes an open standard. How will Adobe manage in a world where it doesn't control Postscript? Or do they have to worry? And what will it mean if Microsoft gives up control of DCOM? No one knows!

Dave