Re: Two Myths of XML

On Mon, 21 May 2001, Kendall Clark wrote:

> A slightly revised draft based on Bij's helpful
> feedback.
> 
> If someone could give it a once-over for typos and the like,
> I'd appreciate the help.

Here goes...but talk about the crippled leading... ;)

[snip]
>    While computer technology might be used to aid radical social
>    change, I have argued that it is always already embedded in very
>    particular social and historical contexts, most often ones in which
>    radical social change for the good is unlikely;

Hmm. Makes me think of the famous "fax
machine" examples...kuwait? The fall of Marcos? China? It's always
convenient to say "Look, uncontrollable democratic technology *in
action*." but typically, outside imperial action had more to do with what
happened.

> after all,
>    technology doesn't fall, as if a gift of the gods, from the sky.
>    Except in extraordinary circumstances, computer technology is
>    developed and deployed by corporations, i.e., institutions
>    fundamentally opposed to radical social change and, so,
>    fundamentally committed to maintaining the status quo.

Eh..I still bleat that they're in favor of it, for some values of
"radical". how aobut "fundamentally opposed to a variety of social
change".

After all, they *don't want* the status quo. They want to kill national
sovereignty. That's why NAFTA and friends.

>    and the Semantic Web by subjecting them to critical inquiry. I
>    examine two such myths, give examples of each, and explain the truth

Two? Or Three? I sorta count three.

>    behind the facade.
>    
>    1. XML Information is Open and Free
>    
>    The first XML myth is that information encoded in XML is necessarily
>    open and free.

Or even that the *ecoding* is open and free.

[snip]
>    What words like ``open'' and ``free'' can mean when applied to a
>    computer data format and what they can mean when applied to a
>    social practice or political institution have very little in
>    common. The intersection of these two ranges of meaning is,
>    practically speaking, nil. But the first myth, that information
>    encoded in XML is necessarily ``open'' and ``free'', arises
>    precisely from the mistaken belief that the intersection is
>    substantial and interesting.

Of course, the myth isn't true for *any* meaning of open and free. I.e.,
there's the *equivocation* fallacy, 'open' xml is 'free' thus things based
on xml are democratic, and the *propogation* (part/whole?) fallacy,
because XML has *these* properites, so too must everything flowing from
it.


>    When XML advocates, like those at the [4]W3C, say that XML is
>    ``open'' they mean, approximately, that it isn't a proprietary tool
>    for making data formats. In that sense XML (the specification plus
>    its attendant, standardized technologies) is open in the sense of
>    non-proprietary. But the openness of XML isn't, one might say,
>    viral; that is, it doesn't necessarily transfer to the data formats
>    XML makes possible and information that it encodes, both of which
>    can be as proprietary and, hence, closed as anything can be.

Indeed, they *are* so, unless specifically made not. I.e., copyright
law entails that an XML vocab is propritory unless explicitly made
otherwise. AFAICT. It's all very tricky.

>    XML's openness, in the first sense, means you can access XML created
>    by Corporation A's tools with Corporation B, C, or D's tools. (In
>    computer talk, entities that produce software tools are called
>    ``vendors'', a term that almost always means, simply, corporation.)

"access XML" is weird. How about *process*? The key is that they're
written to a public spec and thus are compatible. You may need *access*
secured by other ways. E.g., there's nothing stoping an XML editor from
having runtime restrictions on generated docs...as far as I know.

[snip]
>    1b. XML means Universal Access
>    
>    Another variant is that XML's ``openness'' means that the
>    information encoded by it is universally accessible in a socially
>    helpful way. The only ways to be taken in by this myth are 1) to be
>    ignorant of XML and computer technology generally, and 2) to forget
>    that in the US, at least, the most serious impediments to universal
>    access to information are a) the endless death march of
>    privatization of the US's information infrastructure (which is a
>    vital part of the corporate assault on (the very idea of) public
>    space) and b) the digital divide.

Hmm. Some of this might stem not from XML per se, but "XML as part of the
web". These myths percolated up and down from the web. A big reason that
the web is as open as it is is the govt funding, and the slowness in
divvying it up.

>    Examples

Only one here, eh?

>    Thus we have fine examples of some myths about XML. For many,

Some? Not just the first?

[snip]

>    First. The use of XML per se imparts any number of wonderful, often
>    unsayable, benefits.

I see your first myth as an instance of this. I.e., XML is open and
free. Using XML (contagen) imparts openness and freeness on whatever uses
it. 'Open' and 'free' are not well specified other than their being
"good" things.

[snip]
>      finally concrete attainable endeavors, now possible through XML
>      (emphasis added)
>      
>    Which desperately bespeaks the ancient human dream, as old as the
>    first stirrings of civilization, of the perfect language, now
>    rebirthed of technophilic parents.

Oh, I'd hammer here. What could it *possibly* be about *XML* that makes
this a concrete attainable endeavor? What did *SGML* lack?
[snip]
>    3. XML is the Dog, Not the Tail

Myth 3?

>      [M]achine-readable information would give the public much more
>      power and add accountability to the political process. -- Alan
>      Kotok, ``Can XML Help Write the Law?''
>      
>    The final point I want to make is less about myth and more about

Ah. Then you need a non-number at the start of this heading.

Cheers,
Bijan.