Standards selection is vendor selection

Jo Rabin writes in XML.com:

The issues raised go beyond the news industry. When assessing your need for formality, what does it make sense to look for, and how likely is it that your expectations will be fulfilled? Choosing a standard is like choosing other parts of your technology infrastructure, involving defining your requirements and assessing the suitability of a product and its vendor.

The motivation

Just to revisit the obvious, for a moment, standards are good. Except when they're not relevant to you, of course, when you don't care about them. And except when they are being imposed on you by a dominant vendor, of course, when they are bad.

This is why the work of the Federal XML Work Group is so important.