[uf-discuss] Very basic question that is not in the FAQ

[Scott Reynen]

On Jun 22, 2006, at 8:32 AM, Tantek Çelik wrote:

> Sam points out that I am employed by Technorati and implies that  
> poses some
> sort of conflict or corporate bias.  I'll challenge you on that  
> Sam, because
> the (by design deliberate) policies of having open email/IRC/wiki with
> archives actually serve to make microformats.org *more* transparent  
> and
> accountable than *any* other standards effort (I challenge you to  
> find one
> with more open policies) no matter *who* is involved or what  
> connections
> they may have, and second, enable *anyone* with email/IRC/web  
> access to
> participate without having to pay *thousands* of dollars per year  
> to join a
> consortium or committee.  In that latter sense, microformats.org is  
> actually
> *less* corporate (despite your implication) than other standards  
> bodies
> which require paid membership to take part in (very often secret)
> discussions which actually write the standards, and in some cases,  
> even just
> the *test suites*.

Nonetheless, people maintain a mistrust of large corporations, and  
Technorati's ties to microformats.org are more obvious than the  
various corporate connections to the W3C.  It may not be a valid  
concern, but it is definitely a real concern that continues to hamper  
microformat adoption.  I'd suggest that challenging such people to  
validate their concern is not the best way to address this issue.   
Sure, Technorati should be presumed benign until there is evidence to  
the contrary, but unfortunately that's not how such perceptions work  
in the real world.

> The point here is that microformats.org, as a community was  
> designed to be
> open and accessible to independent designers and developers, and  
> puts them
> on equal footing with small and large companies alike.

And it has largely succeeded in being all of those things, but that  
doesn't have much effect on how people unfamiliar with the history  
perceive the relationship between Technorati, the microformats  
community, and also the GMPG.  I think it would be helpful to  
unambiguously clarify these relationships up front as people begin to  
learn about microformats.

> And to correct Sam's implications further, Technorati does not own
> microformats.org

Who does?  Can we get that information on the about page and address  
these concerns before they develop?

As a side note, does anyone know anything about wwwmicroformats.org?   
Is that just typo domain squatting?

Peace,
Scott