The earliest standards were created to support the administration of the government, which in antiquity primarily consisted of religion, justice, taxation and warfare. Crucial standards included the calendar, units of length, area, volume and weight, and uniform coinage. Uniform coinage in particular was a significant advance. Previously, financial transactions occurred only by barter or by […]
Archives for February 2007
Standards and Enablement
I’d like to synthesize some thoughts I’ve been having in recent weeks. But before I do that, let’s have a joke: A Harvard Divinity School student reviews a proposed dissertation topic with his advisor. The professor looks over the abstract for a minute and gives his initial appraisal. “You are proposing an interesting theory here, […]
The Anatomy of Interoperability
I’d like to talk a little about about interoperability. Although I’ll concentrate on document formats, the concepts here are of wider applicability. Wherever you have standards and implementations, these are some of the issues that you will want to consider. Rather than attempting the reckless frontal assault of defining interoperability, I’ll take an oblique approach […]
Washing Machines are not Lamps
Microsoft standards attorney David Rudin has posted his thoughts on my How Standards Bring Consumers Choice, in a post titled Floor Lamps are not Software. David correctly points out that some appliances, like washing machines or electric dryers, with higher power requirements, have a different plug design. “Clearly, a one size standard does not fit […]
The World Ends on May 1st, 2010
Actually, at 6:45AM by my calculations. According to ZDNet’s Dan Farber, quoting an IBM whitepaper, by 2010, “the world’s information base will be doubling in size every 11 hours.” Every 11 hours? That’s quite a statement. Let’s see what this means. The largest storage system in the universe is the universe. (Let that sink in […]